Christmas though celebrated with fervor across Dehradun on Friday has left many people, particularly the preachers and their families, worried over the festival losing its soul to commercialisation. They say that even the Christians seem unaware of how the day is meant to be celebrated.
It has just turned instead into an occasion to be merry, to indulge in fun and frolic, sans any profounder spiritual message that marks the quintessence of the celebration, runs the critical refrain. Anguished over the festival losing its soul in the cesspool of mirth-hunting, Reverend PJ Singh, Morrison Memorial Church, said that Christmas has been reduced to a mere holiday season, to picnic and to exchange cards and goodies, to cut and eat cakes.
“The people are unaware of the hoary nuances inherent in the Christmas customs. They have reduced Christmas to a mere family celebration. They prefer to go to picnic rather than to go to the churches to pray. But this is not what it is meant to be. Christmas has a spiritual significance that is the collective aspirations directed to God to show the light amidst impenetrable gloom that leads to the Truth, the divine life on earth, that is suffused with love, peace and oneness of all. This inner soul should not be allowed to get lost in the rounds of superficial merriment,” he added.
The youth that formed part of the Holy Communion worship seem to agree with the point that the Reverend raised. “It is now all about Santa Claus and Christmas trees. A major part of the youth thinks that Christmas is nothing but its spiced-up music”, Surbhi, the priest’s daughter, lamented. Nandita Khanduri, another visitor to the churches, says it is pub culture and parties that have got the better of the soul of the celebration.
“People have forgotten that we are celebrating the advent of the God through the festival, the divine grant of the prayer of thousands of suffering people to end the agony of their lives through the reincarnation of the lord in a human body. Jesus Christ suffers, forgives the sinners, embraces death and resurrects to carry on with his work of ridding the world of suffering and of heralding the dawn of divine peace and love and happiness for all,” she said.
Surbhi raised another point by adding that the big players in the market have made Christmas a business day to generate huge profits. “They have even shortened Christmas to X-mas. What is XIJ Mathematically speaking, X is nothing and this shows how unaware the people are of the deeper soul of the celebration”, she stated.
“Things have come to such a pass that we are ready to pay to get clicked with Santa,” rued Nandita who was found roaming about a church after the special mass was over.