Christmas Ponderings

There is always something about the Christmas season, something I can't exactly identify. Perhaps its the magical surroundings that exude from the cold December winds and the tinkling of sounds and twinkling of colorful lights.

When I was a kid, it was always fun and exciting. I had few godparents and they always seem to be nowhere when the so called Ber months set in. Life then was just about a new toy truck or perhaps a school free vacation mornings where I get to watch Transformers or Super Friends (a fore runner of today's Justice League). In fact when I think about it, nothing seems to have changed that much except for technological upgrades and the massive consumerist culture we are immersed into right now.

After three decades of a not so amusing life, I found out that thirty Christmases aren't much of a change, that is when I look at all that is just fleeting. Its so hard for us to look at occasions like this which has gradually become a secular event. Its religious meaning has been stripped away, much like Easter and Thanksgiving. Family gatherings, food, gifts, carols and other trappings of a highly commercialized society have totally insulated us from the Event's main reason-the spiritual significance of Incarnation.

There is nothing wrong with family reunions, gift givings and healthy fun; I just hope we don't substitute the essence of it all, of why it started in the first place. We are fond of building monuments to honor our heroes and praise their valorous accounts but we rarely take initial steps to check ourselves and make serious commitments to emulate these paragons. We love the wrappers and never the gifts. We are mushy in terms of the virtues but rarely do we fix ourselves to develop these traits.

Maybe there is more to the wrapper, or the sights and sounds of the Yuletide season. Shouldn't these things point us to the very heart of the celebration at all-meditate on the unusual sacrifice the Creator of the Universe took to demonstrate His love for us? It is never too bad to sound religious (if thats what secularists prefer to call it) if the occasion calls for it. Religion after all is a basic human dimension. One cannot ignore it even if one confesses no religion at all.

I am grateful to companies, associations and people who have opted to celebrate the Season with the poor and downtrodden. I have always admired people who do so. Though of course, the skeptic in me would always say such acts are done for Pharisaic display, I do not deny that there are those who do so generously and with sincere motives. I admire these faceless people, never shown perhaps by the two warring TV stations yet they do the right thing.

They are with us, unnamed and unsung. They can be us if we choose to act in such manner. Yes we can despite our attempts to rationalize and blame our moral failures to genes, bad habits, bad upbringing, bad background and a long list of pathetic excuses. The very list we can do this Season is to wish for snow to come over our roofs and experience an American Christmas.