Yuletide

A Season of Kindness and Gifting

- IRWIN ALMEIDA

Christmas is a fact of life, and history records this eponymous event of the Christian era which commenced a little more than 2000 years ago in a stable in Bethlehem. It is also recorded that Christmas was first celebrated in 354 A.D., over 300 years after the birth of Christ. Then the Church decided that December 25 should be celebrated as the official Birthday of Christ. It was also hoped people would forget their old customs. But they didn’t entirely.

One of these was gift-giving, which is actually a borrowed tradition believed to be older than Christmas itself, and goes back to the New Stone Age when food was exchanged between farmers at mid-winter. There was a practice of giving presents during the last week of the year. The Egyptians exchanged gifts on a day which they celebrated as a special feast, but the gifts were of one kind and all gave and received the same kind of present.

This practice was considered as a form of social bonding. However, times have changed and today, the reality differs from what it ostensibly proclaimed.

In fact, one is today inclined to wonder if there is any room left in our pretentious state for the real Christmas festival. This view is prompted by the prevalent governance gap that those in power are simply unable to bridge. There is no question of a “new” India that the state can claim to be aiming for. It is still the very same India we always knew.