This being the season, just ask yourself the question they ask in revival circles: What would Jesus do?

Personally, I think he’d ban Christmas — hurl it over along with money changers’ tables.

The crazed materialism that has hijacked the meaning of the holiday is getting worse.

From an orange and ribbons in a sock as gifts 80 years ago, to a toy and a few articles of clothing 50 years ago, we have “progressed” to the following.

In the U.S., but notably in New York, the large retail stores have taken to giving their staff special training to deal with Christmas season abuse by customers, added plainclothes security to control fights among customers, including outbreaks of near rioting, and taken to not putting out the hottest items if the supply is limited, lest they turn out to be like scraps of meat before a pack of wild dogs.

“Shoppers have become angrier, suggests a study by ComPsych Corp., a provider of employee assistance programs,” according to the Associated Press.

“This year, ComPsych has seen a marked increase in the number of acute-stress counselling sessions it provides to retailers related to customer abuse. The number rose 13 per cent in 2006, following a 65 per cent jump last year.”

The chief marketing officer of KB Toys, Ernest Speranza, put it this way: “At this time of year, people start out with the best of intentions. They’re busy buying toys for a young child. They’re happy about doing that. Then they get caught in the frenzy . . .and a nice experience now starts to spiral out of control.”

Of course, who wouldn’t lose it, when the prize is a Sony PlayStation3 or a Nintendo gaming console? Adds Speranza, “we’ve all done it: I know I’ve lost my temper, and everybody else has probably done it.”

Everybody?

What about here, in the hick parts of the Empire, where we’re always a few years behind the leading trends? Are we having tantrums yet, in the name of peace on Earth?

Are we stressed even if not to the point of slugging another customer or a clerk for the privilege to pay some global corporation a fortune for the latest bauble?

If we are, it would have happened on Friday, December 22, between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m, according to a retail survey I saw in The Globe and Mail.

At that time, the malls across the country would have been packed to the rafters. On the other side of the coin, on Christmas, the churches will be half empty, putting a fine point on the matter.

So, in the name of what, are we spiralling out of control?

Here’s a hint. The New York Times noticed that an unusual number of bestselling books — and books are always major Christmas gifts — were part of the secularist jihad against religion: The God Delusion, The End of Faith, and others.

So it called some of these authors to ask whether, if their books were Christmas gifts, they celebrated Christmas.

It turns out they did. One, Richard Dawkins, said “it seems to me obvious that everything we value in Christmas — giving gifts, celebrating the holiday with our families, enjoying all the kitsch that comes along with it — all of that has been entirely appropriated by the secular world.”

Who’s to argue?

The same point was made in the Christmas tree flap in Toronto, where a judge banned one from the lobby of a courthouse on grounds that adherents of other faiths would be offended by this “religious symbol.” What’s religious about a Christmas tree? was the logical question.

So is there anything to be salvaged from this deepening atheist/consumerist humbug called Christmas, which seems to embody the worst of our First World characteristics — our stressed-out, frenzied, outspend-the-Joneses, wealth-hogging spiral to nowhere?

Is there anything left of which, from the testimony of the Gospels, Jesus would approve?

Well, yes, some stuff still struggles in through the narrow gate. Charitable giving goes up. Some gifts are needed and heartfelt.

And personally, this year, my favourite was World Vision’s “two chickens-and-a-rooster” idea.

For $50, you could, in someone’s name, as a Christmas gift, buy two chickens and a rooster for someone among the poorest of the poor, for whom, almost unbelievably, even such a paltry thing would make a big difference in their lives.

What can I say, then?

If you freaked out this year, next year chill out. Give modest gifts. Have the guts to say to the Joneses, to your high falutin’ sister-in-law, or whoever, that you’re not playing the game.

To those who need nothing, send a gift certificate, in their name, to an aid agency or a charity for two chickens and a rooster, or whatever.

It might teach them something, and keep them from picking fights at the greed counter.