Blessed Christmas

Christmas is celebrated on 25 December each year. It marks and honors the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

25 December is not thought to be Jesus' actual date of birth. As I understand it, the date may have been chosen to correspond with either a Roman festival or with the winter solstice. (Hi SC - what exactly is the "winter solstice"?)

Modern Christmas customs include gift-giving, church celebrations and the display of various decorations (including the Christmas tree, lights, mistletoe, nativity scenes and holly).

Santa Claus is a popular mythological figure often associated with bringing gifts at Christmas but he is not a biblical figure. In the old days, I used to wonder why each Santa Claus that I came across looked different. I did not know then that it was merely a man wearing a suit. Nowadays, a female version has made her appearance - Santarina! (Oops, I can almost imagine LSD shaking her head and going "tsk, tsk"... "In the old days"? "Nowadays"?)

Christmas is celebrated throughout the Christian population, but is also celebrated by many non-Christians as a secular, cultural festival. The holiday is celebrated around the world. Because gift-giving and several other aspects of the holiday involve heightened economic activity among both Christians and non-Christians, Christmas has become a major event for many retailers. From an economic perspective, it can cost quite a fair bit to buy the Christmas presents, not to mention the hassle of cutting the Christmas wrappers and wrapping the presents.

From November onwards, it is impossible to forget that Christmas is coming. Coloured lights decorate many shopping centres, along with shiny decorations, and artificial snow painted on shop windows.

In streets and shops, "Christmas trees" (real or plastic evergreen "conifer" trees) will also be decorated with lights and Christmas ornaments.

Da and I used to own an artificial Christmas tree. However, as the years went by, I realised that while I enjoyed putting up the tree and the decorations, I was loathe to take down the decorations and pack the tree back in the box. Nowadays, we display a small table-top tree in our living room (see photograph below).

Shopping centres become busier as December approaches and often stay open till late. Shopping centre speaker systems systems will play Christmas carols - the traditional Christmas Christian songs, and groups of people will often sing carols on the streets to raise money for charity. When I was a student, I was in the school choir and we used to go carolling at shopping centres during the Christmas period, something I enjoyed tremendously.

Most places of work will hold a short Christmas party about a week before Christmas. Although traditional Christmas foods may be eaten, drink (and plenty of it) means that little work will be done after the party. The company where I work used to hold a Christmas party each year for the whole company. In more recent years, they have stopped the yearly practice although every now and then, one of the departments may hold its own mini-Christmas party.

The history of Christmas dates back over 4000 years. Many of the Christmas traditions were celebrated centuries before Jesus was born. The 12 days of Christmas, the bright fires, the yule log, the giving of gifts, carnivals (parades) with floats, carolers who sing while going from house to house, the holiday feasts, and the church processions can all be traced back to the early Mesopotamians.

Many of these traditions began with the Mesopotamian celebration of New Years. The Mesopotamians believed in many gods, and as their chief god - Marduk. Each year as winter arrived it was believed that Marduk would do battle with the monsters of chaos. To assist Marduk in his struggle the Mesopotamians held a festival for the New Year. This was Zagmuk, the New Year's festival that lasted for 12 days.

The Mesopotamian king would return to the temple of Marduk and swear his faithfulness to the god. The traditions called for the king to die at the end of the year and to return with Marduk to battle at his side.

To spare their king, the Mesopotamians used the idea of a "mock" king. A criminal was chosen and dressed in royal clothes. He was given all the respect and privileges of a real king. At the end of the celebration the "mock" king was stripped of the royal clothes and slain, sparing the life of the real king.

The festival of Christmas has a special significance in everyone's life. Though Christmas is considered to be the primary festival of the Christian calendar but today it is a part of all religions and is a universal festival.

Christmas celebrates humanity and mankind and conveys message of love, tolerance and brotherhood.

The word Christmas is derived from an early English phrase 'Cristes maesse', that means 'Mass of Christ'. According to many scholars, the festival originated in the 4th century as a Christian substitute for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice many years before the Christ child was born.

In Singapore, Christmas Day is a public holiday. Although there are 12 days to Christmas, only the 1st day of Christmas is a public holiday over here. While Boxing Day (26 December) is a public holiday in some countries, it is not the case over here.

Christmas is celebrated by Christians and non-Christians in Singapore. Being a multi-racial society, many of us have friends of different races and different religions. As such, it is not uncommon that friends of different races / religions get together to celebrate each other's festival.

The tradition of exchanging gifts is also practised in Singapore.

In my office, colleagues exchange Christmas gifts. It always baffles Da how I have to start my Christmas shopping early each year because I have so many gifts to buy (and wrap) for family, relatives, friends and colleagues. He has suggested that next year, instead of buying gifts, I may want to consider baking cakes and/or cookies and giving them as Christmas gifts. Hmm... a good suggestion - I shall have to think about it because I would need to bake many batches of cakes and cookies using our table-top oven. Our oven may well "surrender" after several batches of cookies and "call it a day"! *grin*

In some companies, there is a "gift exchange program" whereby you are given a name of a colleague (picked at random) and you shall buy a Christmas gift for that colleague with a certain minimum budget. The advantage of the "gift exchange program" is that you do not have to buy gifts for everyone in the office nor do you end up having to carry numerous bags of gifts home!

Here's wishing everyone a blessed Christmas.

May the love of Jesus and His peace be upon you today and always.

Sources
(1) Wikipedia
(2) soon.org.uk
(3) holidays.net
(4) christmaswishes.org.uk

postscript

As you are reading this post, Da and I would have arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a 3-day vacation (from 25 to 27 December 2008). We will be celebrating Christmas with Da's sister (GN) and her family in Kuala Lumpur. Hi ST and MT, let's boogie-woogie! Love you girls! Mwah! Mwah!

More updates on our vacation when we come back. In the meantime, be blessed always.