- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 12 2000 02.43 GMT
The story of the nativity was soundly beaten by the present-bearing charms of Santa, with 67% of children saying they associated the holiday period with presents.
A survey by media buying agency MediaCom TMB asked 1,200 eight-to-16-year-olds to nominate one or more of five options as the thing they most associated with Christmas. Presents topped the poll, followed by family and school holidays. Religion only just beat TV, which racked up 7% of the vote.
There was some slightly better news for traditionalists with 40% of children commenting that Christmas was a time for the family. However the Rev Jonathan Jennings, a spokesman for the Church of England, said that the picture was much more positive than the survey suggested. "Our experience through school curriculum and community groups is that most children are aware of the nativity story and the importance of that to the Christian faith," he said.
"The fact that a film like The Grinch with its important underlying counter-commercial message is so successful indicates that children are more sophisticated than this survey suggests."
MediaCom TMB monitored the attitudes of children to help it plan advertising campaigns for clients such as Volkswagen and Nokia. Questions were posed via email to allow it to keep an eye on what's in and what's out in the fickle world of the playground.
Top present requests, according to MediaCom's Cool Kids panel this Christmas, were likely to include Discmen, CD recorders and stereos and PlayStation 2 for boys. Girls were more likely to ask for a new mobile phone, with many wanting to upgrade to newer models.
