Skip to main content

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

 

 

Comments

  1. JaiDecember 25, 2022 at 11:31 AM

    Excellent write up Tom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yamini MacLeanDecember 25, 2022 at 4:51 PM

    Hari OM
    And thus it can be rightly said, there is a magic in Christmas! Blessings and Love to you, dear blogpal. May you have a peaceful and gentle day! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 25, 2022 at 7:05 PM

      Thanks Yam. You are an added delight in my life. 😊

      Delete
  3. rupam sarmaDecember 26, 2022 at 3:19 PM

    Beautifully written. Merry Christmas , Greetings

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Coming-of-Age Poems

Lubna Shibu Book Review Title: Into the Wandering Multiverse Author: Lubna Shibu Publisher: Book Leaf , 2024 Pages: 23 Poetry serves as a profound medium for self-reflection. It offers a canvas where emotions, thoughts, and experiences are distilled into words. Writing poetry is a dive into the depths of one’s consciousness, exploring facets of the poet’s identity and feelings that are often left unspoken. Poets are introverts by nature, I think. Poetry is their way of encountering other people. I was reading Lubna Shibu’s debut anthology of poems while I had a substitution period in a section of grade eleven today at school. One student asked me if she could have a look at the book as I was moving around ensuring discipline while the students were engaged in their regular academic tasks. I gave her the book telling her that the author was a former student in this very classroom just a few years back. I watched the student reading a few poems with some amusement. Then I ask...
8 comments
Read more

How to preach nonviolence

Like most government institutions in India, the Archaeological Survey of India [ASI] has also become a gigantic joke. The national surveyors of India’s famed antiquity go around finding all sorts of Hindu relics in Muslim mosques. Like a Shiv Ling [Lord Shiva’s penis] which may in reality be a rotting piece of a Mughal fountain. One of the recent discoveries of Modi’s national surveyors is that Sambhal in UP is the birthplace of Kalki, the tenth incarnation of God Vishnu. I haven’t understood yet whether Kalki was born in Sambhal at some time in India’s great antique history or Kalki is going to be born in Sambhal at some time in the imminent future. What I know is that Kalki is the final incarnation of Vishnu that is going to put an end to the present wicked Kali Yuga led by people like Modi Inc. Kalki will begin the next era, Satya Yuga, the Era of Truth. So he is yet to be born. But a year back, in Feb to be precise, Modi laid the foundation stone of a temple dedicated to Kalk...
12 comments
Read more

The Triumph of Godse

Book Discussion Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in order to save Hindus from emasculation. Gandhi was making Hindu men effeminate, incapable of retaliation. Revenge and violence are required of brave men, according to Godse. Gandhi stripped the Hindu men of their bravery and transmuted them into “sheep and goats,” Godse wrote in an article titled ‘Non-resisting tendency accomplished easily by animals.’ Gandhi had to die in order to salvage the manliness of the Hindu men. This argument that formed the foundation of Godse’s self-defence after Gandhi’s assassination was later modified by Narendra Modi et al as: “ Hindu khatre mein hai ,” Hindus are in danger. So Godse has reincarnated now.   Godse’s hatred of non-Hindus has now become the driving force of Hindutva in India. It arose primarily because of the hurt that Godse’s love for his religious community was hurt. His Hindu sentiments were hurt, in other words. Gandhi, Godse, and the minority question is the theme of the...
5 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
15 comments
Read more