As the reality of the global recession sank in, merchants from the United States to Kingston, from multi-floor department stores to vending stalls, complained that Christmas would be less about cheer and more about gloom. Scrooge and the Grinch had teamed up. Job losses, including layoffs in Jamaica's big foreign-exchange-earning industries, bauxite and tourism, have jeopardised families' livelihoods and a slump in manufacturing and sales have led to production cutbacks and shutdowns.

But as the materialism and commercialism which have come to epitomise the Yuletide season come under threat from the economic downturn, newspapers have called for a more reflective posture, harking back to the original meaning and simplicity that makes Christmas special.

The Gleaner, December 24

Because of religious sensitivities, the Christmas-card industry now opts for the all-embracing 'Happy Holidays' instead of the traditional 'Merry Christmas' with its religious foundation of the Christ-Mass.

With all this, Christmas survives. Here at home, we are celebrating beneath the burden of a range of social ills which have plagued us all year: crime, indiscipline, corruption and, more latterly, the worsening economic conditions brought on by adverse circumstances at home and abroad. Each day brings new challenges.

The lights of our Christmas today are challenged by the cries of anguish echoing from the valleys of the Portland hills, in the wake of the December 19 horrendous road accident which took 14 lives and left behind broken families and communities.

As we mourn for them, we remember at this time also the many other Jamaicans who lost their lives since last Christmas, victims of the scourge of violence.

Yet, even in the face of such grief, we can still be consoled by the Christmas call for 'Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men'. To believers, it is a spirit of something higher, something more than the human failings which weigh us down, which keeps the messages of Christmas alive, providing a reason for all to go on, a reason based on the birth of a child unlike any other.

The New York Times, December 25:

This year, you may be wondering about the carbon equation of a Christmas tree. You might have replaced the old incandescent Christmas lights and their crazed, fragile bulbs with strands of LEDs that turn from green to blue. You might have given each other newly planted trees on the edge of the rainforest or traded the promise of future services with your friends.

This may be the Christmas when you wonder, or are forced to find out, just how much of the material Christmas you can leave behind.

It may be the one that redefines Christmas entirely - for better or worse.

If you look back at the photos of Christmas 50 years ago - not that long a time, really - you can see what a simple place it once was. What you wanted for Christmas was a very shortlist of possibilities, and what you got was usually the single-most possible thing on the list, plus a few of the articles your mother thought you needed. The intent was the same as it is now, more or less, but the means were so much less.

You may be finding a way to a new and simpler Christmas this year, but that was once the usual kind of Christmas. What it comes down to, perhaps, is saving Christmas from the idea that Christmas will save us - that the shopping we do this season will keep the economy afloat or give us the buoyancy we need for the coming year.

... Christmas is all the better for being a simple place, nothing more, perhaps, than two red cardinals, male and female, against the backdrop of a snowy field. They are there every day. The only difference is that today it feels like Christmas.