Christmas..

Christmas is a festival celebrated worldwide to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, the father figure of Christianity.According to the gospels,it is celebrated on 25th December.This festival has become more prominent in the last decade in this Hindu dominant nation.In Europe and Western countries the Nov-Dec period is marked by festive parties and exultation, courtesy Thanksgiving,You're Welcome Day and Christmas followed by Boxing Day and the New Year bash which gives the feeling of  a green-eyed-monster to the places where Christianity isn't the First religion.Though Thanksgiving and Boxing day celebrations are relatively unknown in this part of the world, Christmas is a pompous display.The churches are decorated with candles and lights with sermons in its vicinity.The altar and the galleries are as serene and calm as it used to be but filled with people with aversion for their felonies and a feeling of ,you can say, Mea Culpa. The "Christmas Tree", mostly a plastic conifer decorated with lights and decorative objects and giving a tinseling appearance in its elegant best is simply a show stopper.Not to mention the schoolboy fantasy of "The old man with the sack" and the Christmas cards.Now-a-days we can see shops and malls decorated with lights,woofers on the street busy day and night reciting Christmas carols,hordes of people in the roads ,all of which make the temple city a happening place.

Fortunately enough,Christmas falls within my (and most of my friend's) winter holidays. There are a lot of pending and clandestine meetings to attend to during this interval :). Christmas ,for me is marked by a visit to a nearby church, a silent homage to the Man from Nazareth and some hors d'oeuvre and/or takeaway food with my friends and family.The ill-managed schedule of the institution has implied travelling instead of partying on New year eve for the last three years. In that regard, this year provides an ample opportunity to concoct plans and celebrate the double bash of Christmas and New year.