ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR III
We all knew it too well. For a child and the little ones, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. For the big commercial establishments and other businesses, its a good time for ROI profit. For the transport carriers in busses, planes or even boats this era usher in the peak season of fully – booked flights and trips.
For the government workers these days are party days. From every segment and subdivisions of groups where the civil servants are affiliated, the party is actually multiple. its like existing in a unique universe every time parties are held.
For the religious, these days are heavy loaded days of the traditions, masses, morning and afternoons.
For the public safety officers, these are times of hightened alert, where every one must keep watch as the insurgents commemorating its anniversary and mourning its founder who passed on.
For the Medical Personnel its a lost time of being with the gang ,and the family as well, sadly Christmas is not an excuse for them to be absent, they need to report to their posts in the hospitals.
For the normal Filipino the stretched Christmas celebration is both a bane and a boon, a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because its a time of celebration, a curse because it would entail extra cost.
Extra expenses and mandatory gifts to a whole bunch of folks connected to you.
But if we really look back to the simple, uneventful day of days, where the Saviour was born to a manger 8n a barn, it would have been a simple sight, bereft and robbed of the trimmings of the light emitting diodes that nauseates us nor the lofty triangular trees we see.
It was dark, cold and people are shooing away the Family of Jesus.
It was a rejection and non acceptance time that would create resentment to ordinary mortals.
It was an rigorous trip of a walk house to every house and rejection at every turn.
It was without the fervor of parties and glitters of sparkling lights.
It was a sad day that was capped with the triumph of the eventual birth.
Knowingly or unknowingly, we are celebrating it from a purview and vantage of pleasure. We are commemorating Christmas from the view of sales and commercialism.
When we should have shared the pain and the hardship of attaining triumph, when we should be sympathetic of the plight that the Holy Family had endured.
Something must be wrong, something felt bland. It is as if we are not searching for Christ in Christmas, it is as if we are seeking joy and pleasure on a supposed solemn and sacrificial trek.
We must put Christ back to Christmas, we must introspect and remember.
It was not a glittery nor colorful time, it was cold, dark and simple.
While we recognize the triumph of the Saviours birth, we must never forget that it w as not meant to be a thing for parties, nor for lights not even a time for splurge of tasty feast, it was beyond the pleasure seeking selves we have, its about love, sacrifice and simplicity that the Saviour had shown. Its about time we put Christ back to Christmas.
