Christmas 2020!

 I have had a sugar rush about Christmas recently and that’s exactly why I want to record it. 2020. Well you might think don’t even get started right? Yeah, me too. So in general, Christmas is an exaggeration to a few and obsession to some in most of the countries. How is it for you? In India, it is quite different. It’s the south east and south west coastal cities (inland too) that celebrate Christmas with its true meaning mostly. Because that’s where the Christian minority of the secular country reside. There are a million different things about the festive that you’ll hear but they are not definitions but only perspectives and feelings. As a girl from India, it’s truly a dream for me to celebrate Christmas abroad. The setting physically and mentally is out of the world this season, there. There’s a family time, break from work, thanksgiving and a huge list more to cite them. In India, it’s merely a short list. Of course it’s a holiday, end of the term for only schools not even colleges. It is mostly about midnight mass/service, new dresses, Christ Ma-Child and the stars that hang out in front of homes. For those who are more faithful the season of advent is about sharing, love towards the needy. It is not even a tradition or a true celebration now. They did not even have special programs on the TV for Christmas until a few years ago. Well, they included December 25 not because they approve of Christmas but to increase the TRP rating with new films or star interviews that has nothing to do with Christmas or even based on it. Well it’s a just a bit of disappointment not that I really care about it. Coming back to Christmas and the sugar rush I mentioned, I watched a row of Hollywood Christmas films in the past week. Few of the plots were genuinely stupid but not even one movie failed to capture the mood of the season. Man, I did a huge mistake. Now all I think about is walking through a metropolitan city like New York or something similar in some country other than India on the eve of Christmas just to see the roads bedazzled of Santa, lights, stockings and decoration. Just eat a pie or have a sip of coffee, keep walking and walk into a church on the wake of midnight, take the last bench and kneel down in silence for a moment and sit back to enjoy the wonderful hymns of Christ birth. Oh only if you were ever in an English convent school, the whole month is beautiful with all preps for the choir and play for Christmas day celebration. Neither the choir nor the listeners would ever understand the words of multiple foreign languages in the hymns but the music is definitely stuck with you forever. There are so many things about Christmas and the union in families. No matter how much you ignore it and put up attitude, we are surely patriotic about the country and our native. It’s there in the heart. No matter how many reasons you hold to complain against your families we obviously love them. It’s there in the blood. 2020 has given us a hundred reasons to give up in life but also a thousand reasons to cherish it as well. Except a very few percent of the population, the rest of us had spent most of this year’s months with our family because of lockdown. But did we really honour that wonderful chance life gave us? If yes, honour it more. If no, there’s honestly no better time than Christmas. We are not sure about church mass, carols and Santa Claus this year as the second wave is hitting us. One thing you can do, Reunite with the family members and friends you fought or had differences with in the past. Rekindle the spirit of joy in your dining table. Reduce the time with gadgets. Remember love is the best thing and compassion is the only hope for this world to be redeemed of its sickness. I am not asking you to do all of this in the name of Christmas/Thanksgiving, just do it for yourself. Just writing this, made me immensely happy. No matter how 2020 started, let us take a tiny effort to end it better. Let us dive into humanity and restore the treasure of goodness that’s sinking and put it in the boat of hope.

Love,

Infant Sheba A.