My Christmas

Christmas was the most joyful season of my childhood. The study table would become the base of the crib that father made every year more or less in the same style. Palm leaves for the sides and roof. The bed was made up of a kind of grass which was known as Unneesopullu (Infant Jesus grass) since it was abundant in the Christmas season. [Now I find it pretty tedious to cut off that grass which invades my garden like heartless marauders in December.]

The Christmas carol group from the parish church and the midnight Mass were all part of my childhood delights of the season. The petromax lamp carried by the carol team was one of my chief attractions. There would be some fireworks too to add to the delight.

The most memorable Christmas of my life was in 1978. I was in Kotagiri as a student of religion. One of my teachers took me along with a few others to a nearby church in the evening to listen to carols. It was the first time I heard such spellbinding rendition of carols. Silent Might and Hark the herald angels still ring in my nostalgic memories. There was magic in that music. It took me to a different world altogether. To the realm of angels.

Angels are an integral part of Christmas. That’s the most charming thing about Christmas for me. Heaven descends to touch me with its tender wings. Even when I lost my religious faith, Christmas continued to exert a heavenly charm on my soul. Christmas carols continue to add grace to my existence. Angels become real through them and they soothe the ancient wounds in my soul.

Christmas heals. Every Christmas is an invitation to a new birth. As T S Eliot would say, Christmas is the fruition of a long and painful journey that puts an end to the old dispensation. Christmas is an invitation to the death of the old and the birth of the new. It does matter that the New Year follows Christmas accentuating the importance of a new birth.

PS. A Christmas short story of mine: A mad man’s Christmas