It’s no secret: Christmas is everyone’s favorite season in the Philippines. Our culture has the longest celebration for it. Come September, we see a considerable change in everyone’s behavior.
Ornaments are on display by then, and will gradually intensify as we move further on to December. Malls will have their pre-holiday sale. And people are just generally in better spiritswhat with bonuses to look forward to.
Sadly, Christmas has been highly “consumerized”. It’s all about what we’re getting and what we’re giving. We have so many misconceptions about the holiday. Some think it’s for the kids. For others, it’s a special time to see their loved ones, hence the many songs composed about cold Christmas day.
You’d think people should be educated about Christmas. And I would agree to that. It’s just ironic that people miss out on the whole point when “CHRISTmas” gives away what it is truly about.
Why do people think of Santa Claus or Rudolph or the saints when it’s really about Jesus Christ Himself?
I sometimes think that men just can’t grasp that God sent His son to be born in this Earth to live a sinless life and to die for our sins. We can’t take that, no. So we settle for simpler reasons to celebrate the day.
My prayer is for us to “discover”—if that would be a good way to put it that Christmas is about how Jesus came to save us from our sins, to give us a life that is full and more. I wish we could just embrace that and savor how good this gift is and how glorious to behold. That way, maybe our holiday stresses will be alleviated, since we’ll understand the real reason we are celebrating this for.
