Christmas

Christmas - a word evocative of so much in the hearts of all Christians! Christmas - easily the best loved and therefore the most proclaimed of all perennial events.

Wherever one goes, in cities, towns, schools, and homes, one finds representations of the Yuletide mood, a spirit which seems to flourish in the twelfth month of every year and which seems to break through into all of us as though it suddenly came to exist in the very air we breath. In the busy downtown sections and in the private recesses of our homes, we hear disc jockeys reviving old popular songs appropriate for the season. These are the Christmas carols, classic but engrossing strains which have stood the transitory of years and without which the celebration of Christmas will probably seem imperfect.

At night time, the iridescent glitter of vari-colored lights lends a jubilant air to our metropolis. Big and small stores alike, at times even little stalls, display appealing paradigm Christmas threads. In department stores, the sale of greeting cards and gifts becomes a quick and lucrative business. Once more we greet Santa Claus, the modernized version of St. Nicholas, as the jolly, ruddy-faced oldster with the thick, white beard and with the red cotton-lined suit and cap. The living room of every home is often than not, graced by a captivating Christmas tree decorated with gleaming tinsels, bulbs of red, blue and gold, and cute, bright little what-nots.

These are spectacles and traditions amalgamated with Christmas; however, to some people the word has a gustatory supplication. To the rich there are visions of the dinner table crowded with "jamon", "lechon", roasted turkey or "puchero". To the poor, no matter how hard they have to economize for months in their daily meals, there is always a dinner celebration suitable for making a blissful though simple Christmas. There are always native delicacies usually and ordinarily associated with Christmas. The Tagalogs have their puto bumbong and bibingka, the Visayans, their empanada and pancit molo, in Pampanga, reputably known to be the home of good cooks, we have open "calame" and if it is the "pasalubong" type, only a Pampangueno heart can respond to that challenge to the teeth and tongue and palate. The resistant but tasteful and utterly savory delicacy is a pleasure to served more fully for the young who have strong teeth and jaws and to those who can bite crunch and grind it, and the Ilocanos their tupig.

But this are only eventual. A true Filipino and Catholic Christmas is one which becomes a fountain of gaiety, delightedness, and satisfaction not only because of the external traditions that have come to be associated with it such as the carollings the gay parties, and the exchange of gifts, but also because it calls for the best in us and reawakens our slumbering Faith. In response to the invitation of the church bells we brave the cold December air to attend the Misa de Gallo for nine consecutive days.

The true Filipino spirit of Christmas is not felt in the erroneous feature of Christmas trees and lanterns of different styles and arrangement and gay colors, to the ensuing disregard of the Christ Child in his lonely manger. For us Catholics the veritable spirit is more befittingly revealed in a belen,for the Christ Child Who came to earth for love of man is the pure emblem of love. Christmas to be fully Christmas must be uttered by Love. Christmas is the time to forgive and forget past injuries, to reconcile families than to receive , to be at peace at oneself and with the world - for peace on earth can come only to mean of goodwill.