Monday, December 04, 2006

Christmas Cheer

It is that time of the year when supermarkets and shopping complexes start decorating and blaring out the special offers for Christmas. It is so easy to get caught up with all this hype and go on a buying spree. The attraction is "This is cheap, a great deal there, buy one get one and so on". What is it about Christmas that started this sales pitch all over the world?

It was a time for giving. The Christmas story is about God's greatest gift to us in the form of Jesus Christ who was given to us for our salvation. From this event we started this fad about buying gifts for people around Christmas time. When you give something to someone it shows you care about that person. Actually it should be about caring and loving your neighbour as yourself not only at Christmas time but all year around.

But being mortals, we tend to forget the real meaning of Christmas as we are too engrossed with our work or our hobbies or our careers or our families and our friends. At Christmas time we suddenly become more sensitive to the people around us and we become extra nice or generous to fit in with the Christmas spirit. For some, this 'caring' moment might even stretch beyond Christmas into the new year eve party where there will be more giving of gifts.

It is not a bad thing actually and maybe with time the caring spirit might last longer with the years until it becomes a part of our daily routine. Until such time I guess we will have to carry on with the practice of buying and giving gifts during Christmas. At least we would have made some poor soul happy for that short time. Something is better than nothing!

No comments: