Shopping Versus Worship on Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, I accompanied my extended family to our local church and was surprised to find that for the main service, it was only half full.

Despite being a fully paid up agnostic, I found this rather sad and wondered where everyone else was.

According to the BBC web site, it appears that they were waiting for the sales to start online.

To quote the article More shoppers online at Christmas

More than five million people are expected to use the Internet to carry on shopping on Christmas Day, the online retail group IMRG says.

IMRG estimates more than £100m will be spent online, compared with the £84m spent last year.

The shopping figure compares with the four and a half million people who attend a Christmas church service.

While I don't believe in God, I do like to think that Christmas day is the one day when people relax and spend time with their families, rather than crouched over a computer.

It seems to rather kill the spirit of Christmas or perhaps I'm just getting old....