“No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, may 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”
—Francis P. Church
ONE of the things that make living in this land exciting is coming to an appreciation of the culture, the language and the origins of certain phrases that are repeated like a refrain year after year when Christmas comes. I have often wondered who Virginia was and what was the reason Francis Church made famous the line, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”
But lest we forget. The generosity of Santa Claus and everyone all around us comes from the love of God who sent His only begotten Son as a gift to the world. CHRIST IS the reason for the season and every season.
Forget the Grinch who would like to steal the joy of Christmas and the Scrooges who would rather shrivel up and die than give love on Christmas Day. There are unseen and unseeable wonders of Christmas that live in the hearts of many Filipino-Americans year round who squirrel and stash away gifts and send them in balikbayan boxes. There are millions worldwide who work and save and remit to make Christmas for their families abundantly blessed. Yes, indeed, there is a Santa Claus that lives in the hearts of each and every one of us who makes the spirit of Christmas alive and well.
The weather is highly unusual in most parts of the world this year but if you tune in to sky watchers’ websites and internet segments devoted to science, the heavens are putting out spectacular light shows seen during midnight and the early morning hours. The auroras about 50 miles above the poles are probably breathtaking. At no other time during the year is the line, “Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.” more appropriate to ponder than at Christmas time when all the splendors of the world around us, if we look carefully and listen well, take on special meaning.
Enjoy the Christmasseason. By now, friends and loved ones back in Philippines would have received the balikbayan boxes filled with goodies that we have been dutifully squirreling away and generously sending since September this year. Remittance companies have never been busier as we send the much appreciated dollars that go a long way in making Christmas merry across the miles.
The spirit of giving seems to burn brighter in women during the season. As a rule, women do Christmas. If you are the woman of the house, my best guess, is that you make Christmas happen in your family by doing practically everything from shopping to wrapping to cooking to decorating. If your mate pitches in and helps you, you are one of the lucky ones.
Women have complicated their lives far more than they care to admit to themselves. We need to simplify. We need to take stock of all the good that has come and quietly nurture a grateful heart. More than likely, all we have is all we need. We need to forget all the what-might-have-beens because these are like excess baggage that makes the journey on life’s road even more cumbersome, even torturous.
I personally like to imagine my troubles, real or imagined particularly come Christmas time, tied in neat little bundles on the computer screen of my mind that I can drag and drop to the little trash bin icon and simply empty them all out into cyberspace never to be seen again— or at least, for the time being.
Christmas is a time for remembrance of things past, mostly the good ones. It is a time for editing out and leaving the unwanted footage on the cutting room floor those memories that are best left forgotten. It is a time to say “thank you”, a time to draw lessons from the year about to draw to a close and to use a new and fresh supply of God’s gift called TIME, given in equal measure to all men, rich or poor, from one glorious day to the next.
May we all be centered in Christ this season and beyond. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!
***
Nota Bene: Monette Adeva Maglaya is SVP of Asian Journal Publications, Inc. To send comments, e-mail [email protected]. To read past articles, click on the link Online: http://issuu.com/asianjournaldigitaledition” http://issuu.com/asianjournaldigitaledition or you can do searches in the least invasive search engine duckduckgo or bing or yahoo even before agenda-driven google.
