A quick twelve-month revolution and it is Christmas time once again.

The season’s here scream out the commercials and the advertisements to the jolly strains of Jingle Bells and an even jollier Santa Claus with a fat paunch symbolic of the eating, drinking binge of the season, and a bulging sack full of goodies, whatever they are, according to the forte of the advertiser.
 Scenes of raucous laughter, merriment jollity. Wine and song abound, far superseding the sober, tranquil effect of the strains of Silent Night.

‘Christmas comes but once a year and when it comes it brings good cheer” is the hackneyed proverbial reference to Christmas.

Yes! And a cheer of a different sort and of diverse sorts and varieties trumped up for the season. This is the spirit that is highlighted and propagated; not so much the goodwill induced spirit of giving and sharing with the less privileged what God in his bountiful mercy has bestowed on us. Do we pause to think “There but for the mercy of God go I?”

And all this surfeit to celebrate the birth of a lowly babe born in poverty for whom there was no room save in a cow-shed This birth which is truly representative of the lowly and humble and the rejects of the earth is blown completely out of proportion and becomes a celebration of those who can afford the ostentation.

How many are out there who do not know it’s Christmas time at all.!

True! The birth of Christ who came to redeem mankind, the coming of the Messiah, is a cause for celebration.

But celebration within the bounds of a certain austerity the circumstances of the birth call for. The season savours of glamour. A surfeit of luxuries -exotic food and drink, clothing miscellaneous sundry excesses, partying, dances in plush hotels.

The commercial world has taken over the festival completely. On the other hand families at mere survival level in hovels and shanties who do not know one day from another.

On one side Santa’s fantastic visits with dream gifts. How come Santa misses or ignores the other side of the street! The innocent, hungry, bereft little ones ponder. They learn early the basics of class distinction. Why have the others everything and we nothing.

The season calls for many souls- searching on the part of those who celebrate. The period before Christmas is the season of Advent.

A spiritual preparation for the coming of the Messiah which is mistaken for a materialistic preparation In our eagerness to have a good time for the season if we but pause awhile to consider Christ’s birth in relation to the world around us.

The number of rejects among us. Those relegated to orphanages, homes for the aged, the homeless, Let us spare a thought and see the rejection of Christ and His mother in those among and around us
If we could reach out this Christmas day

To the poor. The Forsaken. The down-trodden. The Waif.

To whom this day quite rightly belongs

For Christ was born in a stable forlorn what a gift to the Christ-child that would be

What you do unto others , you do unto me