It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Although in our country the season begins with the first -ber month, the spirit does not hit me until mid-November. It is not because of the weather. There is no chill in the air, not yet.
It is not the gaudy announcements in the malls. Too often these get in the way of what could be a happy visit to the stores. If anything at all, these enticements serve only to remind me of how commercialized the holiday has become.
But yes, it is Christmas! Have you seen the lights along Ayala in Makati? Beautiful! Yet it is not those lights that do it for me.
My heralds for this special time of year are the tiny lights blinking around the window of a shack in some dark forgotten street. I see them as symbols of hope. Something in their twinkling makes me at once melancholy, nostalgic, and a little sentimental.
So does a lonely farol with tired tassels stirring in the breeze as it keeps vigil at someone’s window. I am moved by the voices of children caroling, a bit out of tune perhaps, but with so much gusto.
These sights and sounds bring me back to a gentler time when Christmas was truly a holy day; when it was all about Bethlehem, the angels, and the Child in the manger.
I grew up in a home without Santa Claus. We had a Belen, the Nativity scene with porcelain figurines of Mary, Joseph, the angels, shepherds and Baby Jesus.
All our expectations centered on gifts from the Three Kings. (Were there really three?) In mid-December, we wrote them letters in our best possible penmanship asking for two presents. (Children, take note. Only two!) If we were lucky, we got both.
On the eve, we set up our newest shoes by the window with our letters in them.
It was exciting the following morning to see the hoof prints of their camels on the sidewalk below, and to find exactly what we had asked for. It baffled us to think that the Kings would even bother to reply. But they did! They also knew if we had been “naughty or nice.” Remember, that was way before Internet or Skype!
God bless the family of Dr. Juan Cabarrus next door, who kept that whole myth alive for so many years.
And then Pearl Harbor happened! Suddenly the Kings could no longer travel across the world to leave presents at Calle Legarda.
There were no Christmas trees, no strings of lights, and no gifts for the next four years. We still had Noche Buena, but without jamon en dulce or natillas.
Cause for celebration
Despite the war, however, Christmas was good. All that mattered was that our family was together, safe and sound. This alone was cause for celebration.
Much changed after the war. Manila was in ruins. It was the era of the fast buck, of profit at any cost. Christmas started to look more and more like a gift-wrapped empty box with a price tag on it. Some of us bought in.
No matter, Christmas is still the most special holiday for families all over the world.
There must be a bit of gypsy in mine. Our Christmases have been in the snow, under balmy blue skies; singing in St. Patrick’s; or strumming a ukelele. We have had both bleak and bountiful. I treasure them all.
“The tears we shed in years before, are memories now, and ghosts no more.”
It saddens me to hear, in the middle of thoughts of goodwill and peace, stories about how “political correctness” continues to erode the traditions of Christmas.
A New Jersey judge ruled that in Jersey City they would not allow the setting up of a Nativity scene (or the Hanukkah Menora) unless, listen to this, there were enough nonreligious symbols “to mask” the religious ones. How pathetic!
In department stores, the clerks are hard put not to offend anyone by saying “Merry Christmas!” They must say “Happy Holidays” instead.
Well, ready or not, it’s Christmas! The malls open early and close late. The lines are getting long and the lists are getting longer.
But before you rush off to max out your credit cards, here’s a wise suggestion:
“Ask your children two questions this Christmas.
First: What do you want to give others for Christmas?
Second: What do you want for Christmas?
The first question fosters generosity of the heart and an outward focus. The second could breed selfishness if not tempered by the first.”
Think about it!