Weekend

Mixed blessings in the season of joy

Therese LEITAN

December is a special month for Gayan Ranatunge and his family. His wife Preenie and their two children Kumari and Irosha, thoroughly enjoy putting up a six- foot Christmas tree with wrapped-up gifts underneath to be opened on Christmas day.

“The children love it,” said Gayan. “We do this especially for the children and they look forward to Christmas every year.”

Every Christmas season, Devindre Senaratne and his staff, decorate their travel office with zeal. “It’s a season of colour, giving and cheer,” Devindre said. “I enjoy doing this. It makes people happy.”

Gayan and Devindre are not Christians but they enjoy the goodwill and festivity of Christmas.

The Peiris family does not give gifts to each other this Christmas.

“We are going to use that money to buy things for poor families and for inmates of children’s and old people’s homes,” said Carmel Peiris. Carmel, along with her husband, three children, some relatives and friends, will be visiting underprivileged persons.

To some, Christmas over the years had grown to be an over-commercialized festival. The season of profit, multitude of shoppers and the broad range of festivities associated with Christmas spell gold to many.

Supermarkets and other shops here outdo each other in the glitter, decor and discounts while many have started early on their Christmas shopping to avoid the last minute rush of traffic and crowds.

Some frown upon the fact that the religious aspect of Christmas is often ignored amidst this glamour. “There are many in Sri Lanka, all over the world, who cannot just think of enjoying Christmas,” Bernie Perera commented.

“Their plights are awful. There are others who just don’t have enough money to spend on such festivities. Christ was born in a poor stable with no glitter and glamour. We should take this into consideration and do something to help the less fortunate instead of satiating ourselves.”

Whatever the views may be on Christmas, one thing is sure. It’s a universal day for rejoicing, for putting aside your troubles at least for a while, enjoying holidays and getting rid of stress by decorating a tree and enjoying watching people open the gifts you have given them. It’s a family occasion too where one can take a breathing space from office and spend quality time with the family.

“In today’s world of stress and strain we need Christmas,” Tara Fernando said. “I need it and I know many others who do.”

What makes Christmas so special and so universal in its appeal?

Interestingly, many of the colourful items associated with Christmas can be traced back to pagan origins. The early Christians took over a great many old customs and used them in their own way.

Holly for example, which features in a lot of Christmas decorations, was used long before the birth of Christ. Around December, the Romans used to hold a great feast in honour of their god Saturn.

They would decorate the temple of Saturn with holly and evergreens. The belief was that many gods and goddesses lived in the woods and hills. When the wintry weather arrived they thought that these gods and goddesses would be cold so they brought the evergreen boughs into their houses and temples thinking that these forest deities would be able to come with them and nestle in the greenery to escape the bitter frost outside.

Another legend has it that the crown of thorns, made to be worn by Christ when he was crucified, was made of holly and that the thorns pressed into him, making him bleed, caused the berries to turn red.

Mistletoe, a popular plant associated with Christmas, was considered holy and sacred. It was worshipped by the Druids many centuries ago. They worshipped the oak tree and the mistletoe that grew upon it.

How the Christmas tree came about remains unknown. But there is an interesting story connected with it. One stormy Christmas eve, a poor forester and his family were sitting around a big fire.

Outside was snow and chilling wind. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and when they opened it they saw a child starving and shivering in the frost. One of the forester’s children gave his bed for the child. They fed the child and kept him there for the night.

The following morning they heard a choir of voices singing like angels. They looked in amazement at the child they had sheltered for the night and saw that his fazzing face. He was the Christ child himself. He went to a fir tree outside, broke off a branch and planted firmly in the ground.

“See,” said the child, “You were kind to me and gave me gifts of warmth and food and shelter. Now here is my gift to you. This tree will bear its fruit at Christmas time. May you always have in abundance.”

And so at Christmas time, the Christmas tree shines out in beauty and bears gifts of many kinds.

The Christmas tree at home was first known in Germany and then spread to other countries. In England, Prince Albert, the husband of queen Victoria, set up a Christmas tree in Windsor in 1841 and after that the tree was used in England.

Christmas and the Christmas post just won’t be Christmas without the usual abundance of cards. The very first Christmas cards were written ones and not printed. Many years ago, in England, schoolboys had to write compositions and decorate the sheets of paper on which they wrote them to show their parents how they had improved in their writing. When they took these Christmas compositions home, their proud parents would stand them on the mantelpiece for everyone to see.

Later, adults too thought that it would be a good idea if they too sent Christmas messages, handwritten on decorated paper, to their friends.

These private Christmas greetings became quite popular. It then became the fashion to send a printed card with a Christmas greeting on it to friends as a simple and kindly way of remembering them at Christmas time. Today, Christmas cards are big business worldwide.

Every year when the Christmas season rolls around, nothing extols the spirit better than Christmas carols. Whether you hum, whistle, sing along or just let the music wash over you, carols put you into a festive mood.

Carol service is very popular every December in many churches, schools and other establishments. The word ‘Carol’ means a ring dance, a dance in a circle. Singing and dancing was an old religious custom which began long before the birth of Christ.

When the early Christians took over some of the old customs, and made them into Christian rites, singing and dancing was also allowed in their churches, but later it was forbidden. The word ‘Carol’ soon came to mean a merry song suggestive of dancing, bringing such things as the Nativity, or the shepherds or angels.

The man who really began the true carol was St. Francis of Assisi, who was born in the 12th century. From Italy, where St. Francis lived, the carol spread to other countries, keeping its simplicity, religious feeling and merry spirit. The carol ‘Good King Wenceslas’ comes from Bohemia and was about a real king whose feast is held on St. Stephen’s Day or Boxing Day.

The rich Christmas cake originates from a dish called ‘Frumenty’ comprising stewed wheat grains. This gradually became plum porridge and then plum pudding. It was then made of beef or mutton broth thickened with raisins, currants, prunes, spices and gingerbread. From this came Christmas pudding and Christmas cake.

Many of us are familiar with the chocolate Yule log cake at Christmas time. The custom of burning a real Yule log in a fireplace at Christmas time can be traced back to the old Norsemen who used to burn a log each year in honour of the great god, Thor, who dwelt in Asgard.

The word ‘Yule’ comes from the name that the old Norsemen gave Odin, the father of gods. He was called ‘Jule-Vatter’ of ‘Yule-Father’. Yule was a word meaning ‘sun’ and Odin was supposed to be the sun himself.

Old Norsemen celebrated the feast of the sun around this time of the year known as a ‘Jul’ or Yule festival. This name had come to be connected with Christmas and means Christmas-time being held at the same time the old Norsemen held their sun or Yule festival.

Everyone loves Santa Claus, the bearer of gifts. A popular supermarket chain has introduced boxes full of red and white velvety Santa hats for festive shoppers. Many of the sales people in shops have Santa hats on to keep up the festive atmosphere.

Although Santa Claus has come to be associated with the North Pole and Lapland with Rudolph, his reindeer, and his helper elves, Santa or St. Nicholas was really a bishop who lived in Lycia many years ago.

He was a man who did many a good deed in helping less privileged people especially children. He was tortured and put into prison for believing in Jesus Christ. The Dutch called St. Nicholas ‘San Nicolaas’ which was later pronounced as ‘Santa Claus’ in America and other countries.

Giving gifts at Christmas time started with kind St. Nicholas, the secret benefactor of three poor and unhappy sisters who lived in Myra in Lycia. They needed dowries to marry. Their father was very poor and had no money to give them in marriage and so they had no suitors.

St. Nicholas, hearing their plight, threw three bags of gold into their garden one night and the joyful girls were able to find husbands. They never knew about the benefactor but often spoke about him and his kind deed.

This kind secret deed made St. Nicholas so happy and for years this tradition was continued. Even to this day children all over the world hang stockings for his secret gifts.

- Pictures by Sudath Nishantha