Back-to-Christmas movement

If I were from another religion or another planet and I knew the Christmas story and how Christianity began I would be very shocked to see Christmas being celebrated with excessiveness, mindlessness, stressfulness. I would ask: how has Christmas come to this? This was not how it all began.

Simplicity has been supplanted by excess. It seems the Christ in Christmas has been x-ed. Xmas. X for excess. Xmall, Xmess. Oh, we say, but we know Christmas is alive, one just has to wade through the X-cess to find the true essence. But why must this be so?

Toxic toys, double-dead meat, smuggled goods, horrendous traffic, Christmas blues, piles of garbage, overcrowded shopping malls, desperate gift-givers, overeating, excess cholesterol and sugar, clogged airports and bus terminals, the culture of gift and cash solicitation (messengers, garbage collectors, strangers, barangay personnel leaving you envelopes into which you must put in money), and so forth and so on.

These are some of the negatives of the Christmas season that needn’t be there. How is it that Christmas is the time when the gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider than wide, with the latter feeling the pain of being on the other side of the railroad tracks? The lonely get lonelier, the hungry feel hungrier, the outcast feel like castaways indeed.



If Jesus walked the streets and malls incognito to see how his birthday is being celebrated today and to feel the overall mood of the majority, would he be happy? Your guess is as good as mine.

Would he be happy with the churches, institutions and movements that are propagating the Christian faith? Have they fulfilled their role to preach, lead by example and draw people back to where it all began? Have they succeeded in making the Christmas celebration truly meaningful, simple and memorable? Or are they, too, being drawn to the malls?

Masses are now celebrated in malls in order to spare the shoppers and employees an extra trip to their churches. The Catholic churches have conceded to the malls and are wooing back their parishioners in the malls. Worship becomes a side trip, an afterthought. So convenient, like going to a convenient store.

This is a better scenario: It used to be, and it is still the case now in some places, that it was the vendors and commercial establishments that went to the churches’ vicinity to ply their trade. Take the case of Baclaran and Quiapo. Here worship and prayer are the church-goers’ main purpose, shopping is the side trip. And so the churches there could always say, “We were here first.” (It is the local governments’ job to put order in the chaos outside the churchyard.)

I am not making a judgment on the spiritual fervor and priorities of the shopper-worshipper or the worshipper-shopper. I am just making an observation. And I am not condemning malls and their role in the economy and the role of advertising in marketing and commerce.

But one can’t help wondering if (or feel sorry that), because of the frenzy to sell and to buy for the Christmas gift-giving, the Christmas story has perhaps simply become a small side story to be told like a fairy tale accompanied by twinkling lights and artificial snow fall and elves and reindeer hurtling across the sky. The wonder and the headiness that such a scene induces are often what remain. Not “Away in a manger no crib for a bed…” and what really happened and why.

The first Christmas needn’t have been a stark scenario, what with the angels singing, a bright star shining, wise men bringing gifts and shepherds a-visiting, and heaven and nature singing. Some good and wise women must have come too. A special birth such as Jesus’ was cause for rejoicing—and also cause for worry for the powers-that-be at that time. Soon it was time to flee.

When you look at the way that birth is being celebrated now, one wonders where the Bethlehem scene is in all the fuss and frenzy.

And there isn’t a grand, concerted effort to stop the deterioration of Christmas. There isn’t a back-to-Christmas movement of some sort that I know of.

There is the Slow-Food Movement that is meant to counter the unhealthy fast-food culture and to bring back the joy of healthy home cooking. There are so many organizations and movements all over the world promoting organically-grown food minus the toxic pesticides. There is back-to-nature, back-to-natural, back-to-basics, back-to-this-and-that, etc. and the people behind these are really walking their talk, living out what they preach in a concerted way and convincing others to do the same.

Is anybody out there bringing up Christmas? I know the churches keep preaching about it. But I have yet to hear of a group or movement with an identity or a name that is going against what Christmas has become.

And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven, and hea-heaven and nature sing! I love that portion from the carol “Joy to the World” because it is inclusive. Jesus came to redeem not only humankind but the whole of creation. Trumpets blare when that portion is sung or played, giving you a heady feeling.

Be kind to nature especially this Christmas and pre-New Year season. Let nature sing—and not groan—by managing your holiday garbage. Segregate, segregate, segregate. If you can make compost out of your organic waste so much the better. This would lessen the putrefaction and decay on the sidewalks. Do not burn and add to the pollution. Christmas should also be nature’s best moment.

Let’s bring back the true essence of Christmas through our lives. Greetings of Joy and Peace to all!