Vernon Nicholls was Bishop of Sodor and Man from 1974 to 1983, and during one Christmas in the 1970s, he appeared on Manx Radio and addressed the question... is Christmas now too commercial?
Manx Radio: 60 Years Serving the Nation
Manx Radio: 60 Years Serving the Nation - Christmas in the Seventies
We are getting ever closer to that time of year. But one question frequently rises is Christmas too commercialized? Bishop Vernon Nichols appeared on a phone-in and Mac's radio at the festive time and met one very young listener and then got to grips with what is a serious issue. But I believe Father Christmas is going to come to this little girl, Laxie. Can I ask her, are you going to hang up your stocking? Yeah. At the foot of your bed? Yeah. Lovely, and you'll go to sleep. Wonderful, I hope you have a lovely lot of presents. God, and you will be no far in the far place for Father Christmas to come down the chimney, will there? You put the fire up before you go to bed. The Lord Bishop there talking to our youngest phone-in caller yet from Laxie. Another guest on the Christmas program was journalist Valerie Roach. But it was the Lord Bishop again who first answered the question, "Is Christmas becoming too commercialized?" Christmas here is not so commercialized as it was, for example, when we were living in Birmingham, Father Christmas came to the big stores at the end of October. But I'm sorry, I still feel that speaking what broadly television today does really commercialize Christmas. And I think with disastrous effects, I think people are so gullible, so easily led, or we must buy this, and we must buy that, is advertised on television, and they do this. In any of us who have worked in a big parish will know that on the 2nd or 3rd of January, the doorbell is ringing, there are problems in the home because the money is run out, and all the bills are beginning to come in. So please, let's not say to our listening audience that Christmas is not commercialized in the Western world, it only well is, it may not be commercialized too much here. Yes, I think this is very sad actually. More and more, I think children growing up now are being led to believe that Christmas is not a good Christmas, unless they've got an enormous pile of extremely expensive toys. And this is nonsense, I mean you don't show any real love or Christmas spirit to people simply by writing enormous checks for things. I think a really happy family Christmas does not depend on that sort of thing, and it's very wrong that commercial interests should put it over as if it did.