says today's Sunday Times Special section. So I turned the page - pretty sure it was not really going to be about the best that the Christmas season brings us.
Still, prepared though I was, what I saw was disappointing:
"Posh present Porsche"
"Happy Spending"
"Swipe Your Cards"
"Hot Date with Santa: Get into the Christmas mood in these outfits."
I'm usually home by this time in December, so this is the first year that I really got to observe Christmas in Singapore. I was at Orchard yesterday with the Legionaries, doing crowd contact - offering to talk to people about Christmas. It was a great experience. One thing I was struck at, and taken aback by, was how everyone was cashing in on the Christmas season to sell their products. There are people dressed as Santas and elves. There are people in purple (the colour of Advent, you know?). Do they have any idea what the season is about; Who we are celebrating; what the roots of Christmas are?
I asked one girl who was distributing packets of Christmas cards (featuring Santa enjoying bottles of wine) whether she celebrated Christmas. She said "yes." Oh! Are you a Christian? "No. But you don't need to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas right?", she said with a smile.
That's true. Do you know what Christmas celebrates?
"Not Jesus' birth right? It celebrates his death right?"
Yes, I know this is just one person. And you can't really fault her. She was just doing her job. But it is symptomatic of a disconnect, is it not?
Worse was a man I met - an American I think - who that said he celebrated Christmas, but not Christ. I'm sorry, but that's just silly. It's like celebrating Mother's Day, but not our mothers. Celebrate New Year without Christ if you like. Or...winter. Or whatever. But don't fool yourself by celebrating Christmas without Christ. It's a bit pathetic. It somehow reminds me of the B.C.E. and C.E. Some atheists can't bear to acknowledge the roots of our culture and practises, but can't come up with an alternative. So they embrace the forms while trying to divorce them from their essence.
That is what Christmas along Orchard Road mostly is. Form disconnected from root and essence.
I hope I don't sound like Scrooge. But some of the stuff out there really does make me say "Bah humbug."
I must tell you, I love Christmas decorations. I love seeing the malls decked up. I love the carols - both the traditional, religious ones as well as most of the secular ones. December is my favourite month of the year.
You don't have to be Christian to celebrate Christmas. But I really think something is very wrong about the disconnect between the true meaning of Christmas and how it's celebrated today.
Decorations are a sign of joy, of triumph, of an overflow of jubilation. To me they make real and tangible the joy that this season is supposed to bring: the pure, innocent happiness and of Christmas. Is this what the decorations at Orchard are about? Or are they, too, just hollow forms? Signs put out by the shops to lure in the shoppers?
Until this year I never really understood what the complaints were about. Why did people say that it was hard to focus on the true meaning of Christmas because of the commercialization? Now I know - it really can be hard. All the glitz and glamour, the decorations (weird reindeer and odd-looking Santas included), all the malls jumping on the Christmas bandwagon, the advertisers cashing in on the Christ's birth, the mad shopping frenzy do an excellent job of masking the true meaning of Christmas.
I wonder whether some non-Christians, looking at the grand decorations and the enthusiastic Christmas preparations, would wonder if Christianity was, in fact, favoured here in Singapore. After all, the other holidays don't create such a fuss. The thing is, devout Christians don't need all this stuff. We don't want decorations up in early November. Much of November and December are supposed to be penitential times for us: Advent is a season of quiet interior preparation.
In fact, as a Christian, not only do I not need all the hype, I also think it's a desecration of the most beautiful feast of all. It's something of a prostitution of our holy day. It's what angered Jesus so much when he was in Jerusalem and saw the money-making that was going on in the Temple.
I grew up in Oman, a thoroughly Muslim country. Christmas is not even a holiday there. My father sometimes heads to office for a short while after Christmas Mass. The malls do put out decorations, but it's very low-key compared to the effusion of colour, light and glamour that hits you when you ride through Orchard.
But you know - the twenty or so Christmases in Oman have really taught me the magic of Christmas. It's in decorating the Tree with our father, helping our mother make Christmas cake, exchanging gifts with family (or, when we were kids, bursting with excitement at discovering presents under the Christmas Tree early on Christmas morning), calling Sri Lanka to wish our relatives, and going for Mass on Christmas morning. Perhaps most memorable is the eager awaiting for the clock to strike midnight (once we were old enough to stay up that late) so that we could pray as a family:
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment In which the Son of God was born Of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, we beseech Thee, O my God, to hear our prayers and grant our desires. Through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.
This is what most symbolizes Christmas. The cold. The manger. The silence. The night. The waiting. The anticipation. The joy inside. This, to me is the magic of Christmas.
Remember the Christ Child. Remember that Love Himself came to us on Christmas.
Remember all children. Remember the poor, the suffering, the innocent.
Try to block out the din around you. Because that's as far removed from the manger as you can get.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee!
Have a holy and magical Christmas this year.
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