Sunday, December 25, 2005

You know Christmas is coming when Orchard starts lighting up with various lights and Ngee Ann Shopping mall starts putting up their mammoth Christmas tree in the middle of their lobby. You also know it is Christmas when the people around you are complaining about expensive gifts and irritating, repetitive Christmas songs.
I mean how often have we heard the stupid song " Last Christmas I gave you my heart and the very next day, you gave it away. This year to save me from tears, I give it to someone special." I heard it since I was born. I never know why singers of Christmas songs never change. I mean they should come up with something different every year since it is such and important occasion for those folks in the West.
Just like in Singapore when National Day is so important, the organisers use different tunes to praise the nation and borrow vocals ranging from Kit Chan to Taufik. Every year the content of the song is the same, everything in it is about Singapore's brilliance so if such a small country and keep changing its tunes, I don't understand why the world would not change their tunes for an occasion like Christmas where almost everyone in the world celebrates except for maybe Osama. He is probably using this occasion to see who he should bomb this coming new year.
Christmas has always been a special occasion for everybody and not only for those celebrating. I mean Christians will tell you that Christmas is for praising God who love the world so much that he sent his only son to die for us. Or the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.
For the rest of us, Christmas is always the sign for the close of year. It will be a time for us to sit down at home, watch the rain patter on our windows and reflect on what we have done over the year. Of course, after reflecting and saying sorry to the respective Gods for their sins, they would then go on to mass murder a million animals to have a wide spread of turkey, lamb, roast beef and pork.
Essentially, there would also be an argument every year if Christmas is getting more commercialized than the previous year. Over turkey and ham, adults would be arguing that Christmas has now lost it's tradition while kids would be busy playing around and hoping those adults are discussing about what gifts they have gotten for them.
The biggest commercial symbol would probably be Santa Claus. For years, that overweight old man with a white beard has decieved millions of kids into believing that he exist. For years, Santa Claus has been metaphor for Christmas and probably millions of people would have chosen the option (b) if they were asked " What is the reason for celebration of Christmas?"
(a) The celebration of God's love (b) The birth of Santa Claus
I am sure everyone had believed in Santa's existance in some period of their lives. Who would not want free presents to be thrown down their chimmneys? All I have to do is to be good throughout the year.
One just cannot take away this commercialism of Christmas. It is something that has been created by man and now deeply embedded into the mindset of everyone. Christmas means Santa Claus. Christmas means lightings at Orchard Road. Christmas means turkey, ham and roast beef. Christmas means mistletoes hanging from ceilings. Christmas means sharing and forgiving. Christmas means a season to be jolly. Every single year we have been fed with this same garbage.
However, with this garbage comes unity of mankind. The world comes to a stop and celebrate knowing that they share all these in common. World Wars are stop due to Christmas as evident in the incident where German soldiers and allied troops stopped firing at each other and came out of their trenches to celebrate. Year after year, charities are out in full force to garner donations because they know that Singaporeans are at their most generous mood in this festive season. And year after year, the world has shown that unity is of uptmost importance in life and they put their differences apart and celebrate the occasion. Heck, one only has to look at Jose Mourinho's Christmas card to Arsene Wenger. Throughout the year, the Chelsea manager has been heckling Wenger non-stop and just because of Christmas, he sent a card to Wenger asking for forgiveness.
I have to agree that no other festival in the world brings so many people together to be merry. Christmas is more than a holiday. It is a binding occasion that brings the world to a standstill. So what if there is an over commercialization? So what if people don't regard Christmas from the Christian point of view?
Nobody can deny that Christmas has indeed found a special place in the hearts of many. So be it if Santa Claus continues to exist. So be it if Orchard Road shopping centres want to light up and compete with each other for the best lighting award. So be it if people don't regard Christmas as the celebration of God's love.
As long as people regard Christmas as an occasion where for once in the year, all differences are set aside and celebration is unanimous, the world would know that there is still this small spark for humanity. Merry Christmas everybody.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

another good post by sing KL, but are u sure about the facts? such as the German and Allied troops?

you need to come up with a tagline for ur post man, u need a signiture tag line, these are awfully good posts

--thongy