Reason for the season

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

These times when information is as fast as clicking your internet device, the meaning of Yuletide celebrations from December to January with Christmas in the middle, has become so many that they even have doubts about the date of the birth of Jesus Christ.

    Blame that on research based on historical data and stories in the Bible and those told in many other religious reading material and maybe hold Mr. Google responsible too. Christmas sometimes brings back the blues and heartaches as it rekindles the abundant and happy past.     The Yuletide season also becomes sad for some whose loved ones are no longer with them.

    But if recent research could change history that would soon be acceptable or not, I still believe that Christmas, whether it fell on any month of the year, was designed to remind us to love and give to those who have less in life.

    During the Yuletide Season, people would decorate their houses, prepare food and gifts, and be merry. But in the middle of the jolly atmosphere, there are people who are reminded of their lack of material benefits.

    They pity themselves because of their misfortune. Their children peek through fences of rich neighbors partying in the garden and exchanging gifts. They dream that someday they will have food on their table. But while they do not have that, they think that life is unfair and curse it.

    Every time Christmas comes and the New Year approaches, rich and poor children everywhere expect to receive gifts. But the children of the rich and well-off are the ones who are assured of that prospect. And so for every shiny gift that the rich kid receives, the poor child becomes poorer.

    It is quite disturbing when celebrities show off on TV the shiny gifts that they give or receive. The poor who watch these shows certainly find their condition more reduced and feel less fortunate even more.

    We all love to receive gifts, but I sometimes wonder if the practice of gift-giving during Christmas has been implanted wrongly in us since the start of Christianity. It should not have become a tradition in the first place because Christmas and the birth of Christ should not be leveled with the love for material things.

    And so church and community leaders who have the means to explain the good reason for the season should take the lead to correct misimpressions about Christmas and how the birth of Christ should be celebrated.

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Environmental awareness may have compelled Yuletide season followers to shift from using Pine Trees to other plants. This, as far as the Cordillera where Pine Trees grow, is concerned. Today, Christmas trees made of plastic are sold in department stores. But whether the tree was real or plastic, the important thing is that the trees were used to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas trees that were first developed in Germany in the 15th century were traditionally decorated with apples, nuts and other foods, and lighted with candles.

    After the discovery of electricity, the candles were replaced by Christmas lights. Today, a star is placed at the top of the tree to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and a ceramic angel to represent Angel Gabriel.

    In contrast, evergreen trees and wreaths that preceded Christmas trees were used to symbolize eternal life by the Chinese, Hebrews and Egyptians. The Vikings and the pagans in Europe also practiced “tree worship”. After their conversion to Christianity, they still used evergreens in the New Year to “scare away the devil, witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness”.

    My father had his way of using trees. Days before December, he had already looked around for a good size of a Pine Tree from a group of live Pine seedlings. The seedlings have grown naturally on a hill a few steps away from our old house at New Lucban. Then on the first day of December, we woke up surprised to find a tree standing in the living room.

    Years later, we used a Christmas tree cut from a big branch of a wild Guava tree instead of a Pine Tree. There was really no need to sacrifice a young Pine Tree. A Christmas tree does not have to be big but it is better that it is a living tree that has roots and appears to be full of energy so that it can be replanted after it has served its purpose.

    Wishing you a warm and peaceful Christmas. And all the best for the New Year too!