How the Internet Destroyed Christmas by DarkPassionPlayNZ

How the Internet Destroyed Christmas

When I was little I absolutely loved Christmas. Yes, big shock I know.. he of the "Put the pagan back in Solstice" fame actually enjoyed Christmas once upon a time.

You see, when I was younger, Christmas was not about some magical baby that "somehow" ended up in some lady and left a poor carpenter sitting in the cuck chair.

Like many Kiwi households, our Christmas was about family. My late Aunt would drive 12 hours from Wellington to Whangarei, she was a wonderful lady who was a successful barrister in Wellington, never married (and knowing our family, probably a closeted dyke), loved her gin, but had a heart of gold.

Other family would come from closer areas, but it was that coming together for quality time and great food that made Christmas magic to me.

Our family wasn't particularly religious, Dad was Church of England, and Mum was Catholic, but neither were big on observing.

This was pretty common for many households in New Zealand in the 80's. Yes some went to church, but it wasn't a big thing if people didn't go. Nor was Christmas the big commercial playground that it is today.

For my own family.. well it pretty much splintered. My parents split when I was 15, my Aunt passed when I was 17, and my Maternal Grandmother (her mother) followed 4 months after. Those years I pretty much carried my Mother as she recovered from all that and was forced to grow up in the process. My brothers drifted away and started their own families, and so much of the magic of Christmas was lost.

But culturally the country changed too.

So what happened.. well I blame the internet.

Thanks to the internet, the loudest religious voices were no longer confined to church halls or Sunday services. Suddenly they were everywhere. Social media gave evangelical groups a megaphone, and organisations such as Destiny Church seemed impossible to avoid.

Even mainstream denominations became far more visible online. It felt as though Christmas was increasingly being presented as something that belonged exclusively to Christians, complete with endless calls to "put Christ back into Christmas." As someone who had already become deeply cynical about Christianity, I found that relentless messaging exhausting rather than inspiring.

At the same time, another force was reshaping Christmas. Retailers had always leaned on the holiday, but the internet turned seasonal advertising into an inescapable barrage. Email promotions, targeted ads, countdown sales, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day, "limited-time offers"... they followed us from our televisions onto our computers and eventually into our pockets.

There was no escaping it. Every website, every social media feed and every YouTube video seemed determined to remind you that you hadn't bought enough. If you weren't spending money, someone was trying to convince you that you should be. The message was always the same: buy the perfect gift, cook the perfect meal, decorate the perfect house and somehow manufacture the perfect Christmas. It became less about spending time with the people you loved and more about spending money on them.

The internet also gave rise to a culture of comparison. Suddenly you weren't just celebrating Christmas with your own family, you were comparing it to hundreds of carefully curated versions of everyone else's. Picture-perfect trees, professionally decorated homes, extravagant gift hauls and smiling family photos flooded our screens. It wasn't real life, but after seeing enough of it, it started to feel like the standard we were expected to live up to.

Christmas slowly stopped feeling like a season and started feeling like a three-month marketing campaign wrapped in fake sentimentality and polished Hallmark moments. Somewhere along the way, genuine connection was pushed aside in favour of consumption, and the holiday became something to perform rather than something to experience. For me, that endless commercial noise drowned out much of what had made Christmas feel magical in the first place.

So yes, even if I hadn't walked away from Christianity and found a special kind of magic in Yule, I would have still viewed that time of year through a much more cynical view.

I am a firm believer in celebrating that time of year however it suits you best, just don't force it on others. My husband Fin is Jewish and I frequently invite him to 'lore me harder', I was enthralled last year when he taught me so much about Hanukkah, and never once preached it at me. Which is exactly how it should be, celebrate how you wish and share if you are invited to.

​How the Internet Destroyed Christmas

How the Internet Destroyed Christmas