Walking through Oxford, over the Christmas – rather than ‘Xmas’ – holiday period, I was struck by the lack of Christian religious symbolism in shop and street displays.

We seem to have got used to lacklustre and mediocre street decorations but they now appear even less ‘Christmassy’ than before.

It is bad enough that Christmas cards now state ‘Seasons Greetings’, means absolutely nothing, instead of ‘Merry Christmas’ and, although I am not an overly religious person, considering all major religions to be social political control mechanisms, this is only my personal view and I still respect others’ right to believe in their respective faith – as long as they are willing to logically discuss religious views with me – and I, therefore, decry the ‘de-Christianification’ of this period of the year.

The street decorations could easily be used for any other religious or non-religious celebration–— which shouldn’t be surprising considering that we still appear to prefer a ‘neo-communist’ city council to control policy – a bit like asking Stalin to lead prayers at Evensong.

Of course, it doesn’t help that we forget – assuming we knew in the first place – that the Christmas that we recognise is actually a mixture of Christian and older pagan religion(s) that occur at the same time of year and have got mixed together – the end result unrecognisable from that of many centuries past.

Not that this is of much interest to the majority who are no longer brought up with any serious religious faith belief. Sad.

MICK HEAVEY, Oxford Road, Old Marston, Oxford