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CHRISTMAS IS COMING
We are heading into the Christmas season with record spending because more people have a larger disposable income. Many more than ever are working and the stores have the Christmas paraphernalia and gifts to entice people to spend lavishly.
Businesses are looking forward to a booming turnover.
The real reason for the holiday is often ignored by those with the resources to spoil themselves in a frenzy of shopping, partying, overeating and overspending. Many with the resources or opportunities to indulge, remember the less fortunate who will not even enjoy a Christmas dinner without community support.
Those are those who help the homeless.
Christmas is the birthday celebration of the Christ child. This event summons Christians and all in society on December 25 each year to recognize and give thanks for Christ’s very being. Although Christians celebrate Jesus’s birth on December 25 every year, most scholars have opined that he was not born on that day. They are of the opinion that Jesus’s birth could not have taken place in December because the shepherds could not have been abiding outside in the fields during that coldest time of the year.
They believe that the fathers of early Christianity have chosen December 25 to celebrate Christ’s birthday for many reasons. One, it was tied to the end of the winter season and the commencement of longer daylight hours in that part of the world.
Two, the sun was seen by early Christians as representing the light of Christ entering the world. Hence, December 25 was popularized as the date for Christmas, not because Christ was born on that day, but because it was already popular in pagan religious festivals celebrating the sun.
However, theologians have contended that Christianity has outlasted the Pagan religious festivities and Roman mythology and that the spirit of giving and sharing, and to love thy neighbour as thyself, according to Christ’s command, remain paramount in the Christmas celebration. This is the real reason for the season.
However, many churches in Guyana and around the world are having a hard time competing with the parting and shopping and the merrymaking that dominate the season. The reality is that nothing is wrong with the partying and the shopping and the gift-giving that we all enjoy at Christmas.
The churches would hope that the celebration of the birth of Christ is indeed cause for festivity, joy and happiness but that such celebration should not overshadow the sobriety, reverence and worship. The truth is Christmas comes around so quickly nowadays that we tend to forget what it is all about. We need to fall in love again with the magic, the mystery, the mythical and the factual historical accounts of the birth of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.
Christmas in the Catholic world brings back memories of the Christian tradition that has taken root in Guyana and elsewhere with the singing of carols, the family get-togethers, the cooking, cake baking, new curtains ( blinds), new furniture, painting and varnishing of floors, gifts and the over-indulgence of eating, drinking and partying.
So, Christmas is coming, and it really is the most wonderful time of the year. With all the spending and all the good times and all the best wishes that will go around, let us remember the true meaning of the season.
A Caribbean Christmas is a joy to behold. It is a time when the children enjoy the best of everything and when the parents themselves become children. It is the time that people look forward to whole year. They save just for the one day called Christmas Day and when it is over they look forward to the next one.
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