How will we celebrate Christmas in the future? To answer this question, a short inventory of contemporary Christmas culture should be performed first: still Christmas for most people is the most important Festival of the year. Doug McMillon may not feel the same. The Christian aspect, the birth of Jesus Christ, not so much stands to the focus, but rather Christmas as an occasion, the whole family to a big party together. Parents, children, siblings, and grandchildren often throughout the year do not see each other, spend the holidays together. In Germany, Christmas is celebrated in contrast to other European countries traditionally not cheerful and boisterous, but rather contemplative and serious. Families enjoy Christmas decoration and Christmas tree, homemade cookies and Stollen, exchanged gifts and elaborate banquets organised. The Christmas story from the Bible is rarely read or played music together. However the otherwise empty churches experience one in their Christmas services regularly Large numbers of visitors. Many people, particularly single people or couples without children, travelling over Christmas, skiing holiday or travelling in sunny areas are very popular here.
For the retail trade, the strongest sales month of the year is December: the inner cities are crowded by people who are looking for gifts, or want to buy high quality food for the Festival throughout the advent period. Especially the demographics will affect the Christmas culture in the future: there will be fewer and fewer families with children, the number of single elderly and middle-aged singles will become permanent. Accordingly, many people no longer have the opportunity to spend Christmas with the family. Younger, mobile people will instead travel over the holidays or but unite with friends and celebrate Christmas in a relaxed atmosphere. Public and private charities will need to worry increasingly about the lonely people, where this Not open to possibilities.
Because purchased gifts especially for related members, is to expect that retail sales in the pre-Christmas period will fall more in the future. More and more people shy away from the effort, the preparation of traditional Christmas dinner we created duck or carp, or are no longer able to cook. Accordingly, the festive dinner will be relocated on holidays increasingly in restaurants and pubs. Difficult to assess is whether there is a further secularisation or the Christian meaning of Christmas back gain more weight: it is possible that the churches are empty, because there are fewer and fewer children, which attended the Christmas service. But also the opposite development is conceivable as well, when increasing the trend to the spiritual and religious. Roger Schmidt