christmas Jubilee!

Christmas comes once in a year
 Christmas comes with no fear
Christmas brings several stares and glare
A glamorous occasion so very dear….

I thought about Christmas and the above came to mind…another thing that came to mind is the way christmas is celebrated. Yes we know we represent Christmas as the birth of Jesus but then how did we come about father Christmas/ santa claus such that it became a tradition and we all especially kids look forward to it yearly?
From tales, father Christmas was said to have started because of a man, st Nicholas who lived in a place now regarded as Turkey. He was a very rich man because his parents died when he was young and left him a lot of money. He was very kind and had reputation for helping and giving to the poor.  He gave secretly too. Sometimes ago He started dropping bags of gold in the home of a certain poor man secretly every night to enable the man get his daughters married.  Finally the poor man determined to know who was giving him money, the man hid behind the fire and in the night he caught st Nicholas trying to drop the bag of gold again. The news became public so since then everyone who got a surprise gift at midnight concluded that st Nicholas had sent them a gift.. st Nicholas then became santa claus.

How then does this link with our celebration of the birth of Christ? The birth of Christ was accompanied with giving of gifts,(gifts from the three wise men) Jesus Christ himself is a gift to humanity, since the society has tagged the giving of gifts to Christmas, Christmas celebration became a time to expect surprise gifts from santa claus (Father Christmas).

Why do we have Christmas trees? A story is told of a man called Martin Luther who one night was walking through  the forest and looked up to see the stars shinning through tree branches. it was so beautiful that he went home and told everyone it reminded him of Jesus who left the stars of heaven to come to the world. Christians began to use this tree as a sign of everlasting life with God. Different tales have been told of how Christmas shouldn’t be on the 25th of December, how it is a pagan holiday. We do not care about that, all we know is that Christ was born, we celebrate his birth and the gift of life.

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, the happiest season of all with kids bubbling with excitement, it is a wonderful phenomenon,  a worldwide celebration a sign of hope of a brighter new year ahead. Merry Christmas to you