December 2018 is fast turning out to be an organized mayhem of sorts, as experienced by the harriedness and harassment that one goes through at this time of a frenzied season. Credit it to the marketing consciousness that shops have become experts at, the magnet has become simply too strong for anyone to pass up. The glitter and glamor of it all are just too much to resist. Christmastime has become one huge commercialized black hole that everyone gets sucked into.
Wherever one goes to, be it the mall of our choice or the tienda-type nearest our block, the zest and passion wrench the heart. For the budget-conscious, anything over pre-estimated buys is simply overlooked, as if something else can match the quality of the thought. Somehow, dear shopper merely shrugs off what may be extravagant by his/her level and moves on more hurriedly to other shops for the affordable finds that seem to be out of reach. The frenzy gets more notches up, the nearer Christmas Day is. For most, CD may well be consumption deadline and how best we can zoom past it, sanity intact. Lucky for those who survive it. Tough luck for those who didn’t.
How did all these maddening madness develop? Maybe, we can learn much from when and where it all began, if only to bring back the sanity and sense of what Christmas is all about. Remember the Reason for the Season? Ah, the holy birth 3,000 years ago. Yes, the Infant Jesus coming into this world amid the most humbling, depraved and deprived circumstance. Yes, the Infant Jesus clad in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, surrounded by beasts of burden which have helped Man in his daily toil on the farmlands.
His birth came as our Father’s gift to Mankind, to serve later in adult life as our Savior from all the sins Man has been known to get into, and our Redeemer for ruining our life from sins repeated over and over. In humility, He came; in simplicity, He lived; for immortality, He died on the Cross.
Has the simple lesson that the Nativity brings not been clear and loud enough to be heard and heeded all through the centuries? Has the world been so engrossed by the material possessions over and above the spiritual redemption?
In today’s modernizing world, everything seems to have gone haywire, obliterating the Reason for the Season in the name of a commercialized Christmas, now disrespectfully shortened into an X as if the Christ were an unknown factor in anyone’s life. Isn’t it time to bring the Christ back into Christmas, first and foremost?
Haven’t modern-day Christmases been celebrated with Santa Claus dominating the holiday spree? No offense to St. Nick, there seems no sense at all glorifying the huffing and puffing global figure traversing from the North Pole to everywhere else in the world by reindeers gifted with herculean strength in a gift-giving global sprint. No wonder that gifts have been taken as the be-all and end-all of an intense Yuletide frenzy — the more presents there are to give, the more presents there are to receive.
Lest it be missed out, this is not to degrade the customary Pinoy trait of remembering a loved one by the gift he gives. Hardly. Not at all. This is simply to emphasize how we Pinoys have so gone overboard, apparently accustomed to get bullied by what and how we can to make others be happy about this Christmas, regardless of capacity and means that simply varies from family to family, from person to person.
When everywhere we go, we see nothing but Santa Claus doing his frenetic rounds for gift-giving, what else can turn us away? Even from the most meager of means, we simply shrug it off as plain smugness and take it on the chin, spending everything saved up these many months for the gifts that we can give, even if done without regrets, without remorse, without expectations of rewards or recompense.
Christmastime should be when we should take a good pause from the sparkle and shine of the season and introspectively reflect how Christmas should be observed, not the wild goose chase that everyone gets into just to find the great find at the least possible financial strain. And while we’re at it, perhaps this should be as good a time as any to inwardly ponder how well have become to be a worthy gift to the Infant Jesus whom the Father has worthily given to us for our salvation and redemption.
Are we now a worthy gift on December 25? And the days, months and years after?
Okay, alright, in the meantime, let’s be less mean this time. Here’s wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone out there. Here’s hoping that the joys of the season sparkle with a glimmer of growing hope for a coming new year. All the best for the Best Gift we can ever give any Christmas Day: Not just Me but We.
