Christmas - one of the most popular events in the Christian calender is just ten days away. In our cities, Christmas has become symbolic with brightly decorated shops,  large crowds of especially young children accompanied by their parents, shreiking excitedly as they choose gifts from malls. 

Children from the lesser affluent or poorer sections of society select their ware from the pavement vendors who crowd the main streets of the capital and big cities elsewhere in the country, while those from the inner cities or slums as we commonly refer to them, watch hiding behind pillars and broken walls watching enviously from the sidelines.

Yes, Christmas means different things to people, depending on which section of society they come from. At the larger shopping centres Santa look-alikes roam the sidewalks slipping gifts to some lucky children.
The homes of the well-to-do are gaily decorated, ‘Christmas trees lit up, gifts  wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree. Children are agog with excitement in the expectancy of gifts from Santa Claus. Santa himself will come along at midnight on 25 December with gifts for some lucky children. Many mums and dads will by now have ordered Christmas lunch and are busy getting the Christmas cake ready. They would also have ordered lovely new sets of clothes for the kids.

But, for mums and dads of the poor and deprived, Christmas will not be such a happy occassion. For their children there will be no nice sparkling toys or gifts. Santa will unfortunately bypass the tenament houses they live in. If they can afford to give their kids a full meal that day they will be filled with joy.

Sadly, many a mum and dad from the slums in our cities will have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For many others, their employers may have cut their wages by as much as fifty percent.
No, neither the children nor parents from the poorer sections of our society are going to have a Merry Christmas. But what is the true meaning of Christmas? For Christians, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Christ himself was born in a stable at Bethleham in the land of Palestine. Born in a cattle shed, amid the smell of urine and defecation - much like the state of our city slums, with no running water or toilet facilities. 
To make matters worse, the ruler of the country where Christ was born,was planning to have him killed (political reasons). And so the Christ-child like the Palestinian refugees of today, had to flee his homeland in to seek refuge in a foreign land.

He bacame a refugee, like the over 5.6 million Palestinian refugees of today who are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees. 
Yes, it is the birth of this Christ Jesus, born in a cattle shed in Bethleham and fleeing like a refugee, we celebrate at Christmas and Christ preached the message of love with one’s fellowmen. 

The Department of Census and Statistics informs us that over fifty percent of Colombo’s population live in shanties or slums. These families depend on a daily wage to keep body and soul together. But large numbers of daily paid workers have lost their sources of income since the coronavirus hit this country. 
For the children of these unfortunates the message of Christ - love, sharing and the happiness of life itself will be meaningless. For them its simply a struggle to get through another day of hunger. 

Even the bluechip companies seem to have forgotten the plight of this unfortunate section of out population this Christmas. In other years these companies used CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programmes to raise conciousness of their situation as well as funds to benefit the less advantaged sections of our people. Unfortunately this year, we have not heard these large conglomorates appeal to ordinary citizens help make Christmas merry and bright to children from poorer families or children in orphanages.

Whatever be our beliefs, the message of Christmas is love,and sharing. For those of us who are Christian, it is an edict from Christ himself. Can we claim to love Christ, without doing something to lighten the burdens of his and our less fortunate bretheren.