A look at our shops with their new products and offers, fancy lighting and decorations already shows that Christmas is approaching.

While Christmas is a very important Christian feast, a group of Sri Lankan priests are calling on Catholics to boycott Christmas celebrations unless the war and related killings and disappearances end.

"Stop all the Christmas celebrations. No Christmas cards, no lights, no decorations, no new clothes. Nothing!" said Fr Mariathas Selvaratnam, who heads the Jaffna province of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He was speaking at a sombre moment - the death of Fr Nicholapillai Packiaranjith, who was killed in a land mine explosion in September while taking relief supplies to refugees.

Sri Lanka is not a Christian country. In fact, Christians are in a minority. But in the past the Government has sponsored Christmas light displays along streets in the capital to acknowledge the Christian holiday.

Fr Selvaratnam is not alone. A Colombo archdiocese official, Fr Noel Dias, urged priests, religious and parishioners to write the bishops, calling for concrete actions and an end to big Christmas celebrations. And Franciscan Sister Placida Lihinikaduwe said Catholics must "campaign differently" and "some stern action must be taken by the Church".

Sri Lanka is facing a bad situation. Fr Packiaranjith is the fourth religious leader killed or missing since August 2006 and the 58th humanitarian worker who has been killed or disappeared in that same period. More than 65,000 people have been killed and over a million displaced due to the war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam and the Sinhalese-led government, which Tamils have long claimed discriminates against them. In addition to military clashes, there are almost daily reports of killings, abductions and disappearances.

This tragic situation is leading these priests to propose the radical action of boycotting Christmas. We live in a totally different situation, but even here the Christmas ethos is under threat. It is not the threat of a violent society but that of a consumerist society. Even our consumerist society attacks Christmas at its very heart and roots.

There is no need to take the same radical action that the priests in Sri Lanka have taken. But in recent years we have been lamenting the commercialisation of Christmas, and increasingly so. Isn't it time to take some concrete action, even if symbolic?

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