Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday

Last evening, I was having my dinner in the living room with the television set turned on. This is the usual practice in this household having the television set left on without anyone really watching at that time of the night. A certain advertisement caught my attention for almost a full minute and threw me off focus in devouring my meal. It was a commercial for a rather renowned brand of jewellery in Singapore and they were show-casing their latest line of designs designed by a prominent Singaporean pop song writer and stage performer. Apart from the glittery display, the theme of the commercial was directed towards ‘giving’ wholeheartedly during this December season of festivities. It is this time of the season once again to ‘give’ and to ‘receive’ and it’s no surprise that businesses will employ this strategy to entice consumers to spend in the progressive build up to Christmas. In the eyes of most Singaporeans, Non-Christians and most Christians alike, Christmas is perhaps, a season of giving and receiving gifts, log cakes and sweets, fattened hams and turkeys and fancifully decorated lights at the heart of Orchard road. In my opinion, this prevailing phenomenon is one of the most unforgiving misconceptions that hasn’t really been openly dealt with.

Christmas to me in my younger days as a boy , would be an anticipation that I’ll get presents that I truly desired ,a family get together with food and drinks in abundance without missing out on the turkey and the dreaded long mass at church. I don’t deny that there’s a strange feeling of excitement whenever we attended midnight-mass at Holy Family church perhaps due to the fact that everyone was there in unison to usher in the great day and that everyone was forced to stay awake past midnight. However , this excitement died down everytime the priest started to get draggy and that I’ll rather be home to open up presents.


Throughout my 27 years, I’ve received presents of different shapes,sizes and values packed with differing intentions which never fail to evoke mixed feelings and perceptions. In my opinion, the ‘givers’ could possibly fall into 3 main categories, namely the sincere giver, the prideful giver and lastly the giver who gives to show that he/she is giving..

The sincere giver is one who studies what his recipient would possibly like as a gift and that he/she will take time and effort to source for that gift.

The prideful giver is one who buys something of a respectable value for the sake of buying it just for namesake which may not be possibly useful to the recipient.

The giver who gives to show that he/she is giving, simply buys anything which is deemed cheap or recycles unwanted gifts.

In my humble attempt in clearing the misconception of what the media presents Christmas to be, I hope that you’ll bear with me as you allow your eyes to gaze through the following. To me, there is one rather commonly used verse from the book of John in the bible which represents that true essence of Christmas. The verse, John 3:16- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. fully exemplifies God’s love for us. The Lord loves us all so much that he gave us his only son, Jesus Christ, not to condemn the world but to die on the cross to pay for our debts! That I believe is and can possibly be the only one gift that everyone needs which is there for everyone to inherit. Through his son’s death a bridge is forged between the Lord and us and that we will inherit eternal life, only if we choose to believe. Christmas day marks the time when Jesus Christ was born more than 2000 years ago. A day certainly to remember God’s unconditional love for us.

A few years ago, an ex-holy family priest cited in his Christmas mass homily that Christmas day has become an event filled with much elaborated celebrations with the birthday boy being left unattended to and simply not remembered. I can see this happening in many more years to come.