By Sachin

Christmas Holiday Cheers in the Warmest of Hearts

Yuletide season has always been an exciting holiday to expect, it is very much expected by anyone from kids to adults, and it is just a season of giving, loving and having that Christmas spirit alive. It has been a tradition that has been the core of holidays on our yearly calendar. From the Christmas tree, the snowman, the decorations, the mistletoes and of course who would ever forget about the gifts. It is the most highly anticipated event of the year that has everyone getting those excitement juice flowing. No other holiday joins a family together than the ever-loved Christmas.

While growing up you must’ve encountered the Santa Claus stories, his reindeers and sleigh, the toy factory in the North Pole, the elves, the gifts and other folklores woven around Christmas. It has been kind of mythical to a point but as a child you probably would wait till the clock strikes 12 so you can peep and see if Santa Claus has something for you. Christmas is considered as a holy holiday, especially by those who are extremely religious, after all it is the day that our saviour Jesus Christ was born, so frequent visits to the church has been kind of like a pre-requisite for them.

In other parts of the world, celebrating the yuletide cheer has always been special, it’s a tradition may it be different cultures or religious beliefs that when the calendar date is December 25^th, it’s the time we prepare well enough that we ought to get our house decorated with beautiful lights and fascinating decors. Christmas, whom some claim the busiest holiday of the year truly gives your competitive side going, in terms of designing your home or getting those gifts wrapped. It is a holiday like no other. It has been a cultural trend to a point because it is like a habitual event every year that we all look forward to.

Christmas, in which as special as any other holidays gives out a lot of love. We have witnessed shows that present and show the Christmas spirit, tolerating the giving and loving theme of the holiday. The main message of the yuletide holiday is showing what you can give morally to the community. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to spend money to express your spirit, but one just has to show the care and love that this holiday represents. Santa Claus is a great role model because he boasts the spirit of giving and charity. I am proud of those foundations that have modelled charity events and the money is exclusively used for people who are in need in this festive time of the year.

Christmas has a lot of meaning; in general it exists with many causes. Spiritually, its meaning is very important, emotionally it is expected to touch lives, physically it is what it is, and activity on this holiday can get you up and down. The important thing on this holiday is we learn, we experience and we cope up to the real meaning of it. There are a lot of interpretations for this holiday; it is just significant that you know yours. So, without further ado, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all, may you find the real Christmas meaning in your hearts and use it as different perspective to your everyday lives.

By Mandappa

Aah! The glorious smell of freshly baked cookies. It presented a sniff of Christmas and a whiff of nostalgia. I’m sitting here on my dining table, looking over the first batch of cookies. I’d rate success at about 80%. It’s a little burnt. But good enough for a second try.  

I have had enough of picking up cookies of fly ridden shelves in dinghy bakeries. Of cookies packed so long ago, that it doesn’t even contain the essence of Christmas. And the very packaging, a flimsy polythene, polyester or poly whatever sure takes the very joy out of Christmas cookies.            

So I decided I’d make an attempt if nothing else to revive Mummy’s tradition. It usually started around the 10^th of December. Every day from then until Christmas eve, Mum baked as the cousins pottered around the entire holidays. Almond cookies, chocolate cookies, Wheat, Oat and Bran cookies. Cookies with nuts, cookies with butter, cookies with chocolate chips and with every kind of possible topping. Cookies, cookies and more cookies. The smell of the continuous baking was the best part of my growing up years. As well as the best part of Christmas.  

My cousins would come over. My family still lived in the ancestral house. My cousins would totter in with their folks. One by one as the holiday season began differently in different parts of the country. 35 was the number of cousins. Though usually only about 30 made it. Considering the times now, that was a huge number. In my last visit, there were 5.           

None the less, back then, they were a bunch of us. A big bunch of us to be precise. We woke up, ate, played, ran, shouted, screamed, showered, punched, fought, played some more, danced, sang so on and so forth. Basically we painted town red. All the while Mum and her sisters baked. Every time we took a break from our hooliganism and stepped into the house, we were greeted with the warm whiff of baking cookies.   

Times change. One by one we grew up and got busy with our own little worlds. The number of cousins kept dropping. Every one had big exams, a big promotion, a big wedding or so called better things to do.  

I’ve missed it but I haven’t said much. I’ve been guilty of the same offences so there wasn’t much I could do.  

The past few years, I’ve shamelessly treated my kids to plastic box cookies from plastic filled supermarkets. I’ve bought them in big plastic bags from plastic-faced bakers. My kids are happy. They never knew better.   

The ancestral house is gone. So is Mum and most of her sisters.  

For a change and for what it’s worth I decided to bake cookies this year. Busy schedules not with standing, I shopped for ingredients. Brought home the recipe and started a fresh this morning. Not knowing where it would go from there.  

Until my 8 year old son came running in from the garden, hugged me and asked, “Mummy, what’s that smell?” I smiled with tears in my eyes and said, “That’s the smell of Christmas, darling.”

By Rahul Sirsikar

The December cold winds and snow bring out a sense of joy and excitement along with them .A jolly environment is enough to let us know that Christmas is around the corner. The town is soon painted into red and white making it a fairytale world where children would be caught catching snow flakes on the tip of their tongues while some are seen making snow angels on the ground. The sky which usually uses to be bright with sun showering down his rays is now covered behind white clouds, telling people, it is time to come out of the house and spent some time with the family which we have so missed due to our busy schedules for the past eleven months. And the people couldn’t argue more.

Though Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, as the name appropriately tells when abbreviated Christ’s-masses, where people flock together and visit the church .But, a very few know that sometime back Christmas was not a secular holiday.

The Christmas celebration was created by the early Church to entice pagans to convert into Christianity without losing their own winter holidays. But it was during the great depression that then President Franklin D Roosevelt due to Christmas’s dual status of religious and secular holiday enforced the Secular Christmas holiday. This helped not only the depression but also gave people and the economy a great boost. This is where Commercial Christmas began. With holidays, excitement and religion, money was to be made and that’s where the businessman makes their profits.

With every Christmas that arrives, comes a new wave of excitement. It’s the time when the people shop for Christmas trees, children suck on umbrella candies or are seen making snow-man and lovers could be seen in warm coffee bar’s sharing their feelings with each other. The city, which is so busy during other months suddenly, comes to a standstill with colorful lights decorating each corner and the Christmas corals enlighten the city from within and giving the city a serene atmosphere of peace and bliss.

The best part of Christmas comes prior to the day of the birth of Jesus, when Christmas trees at home are decorated with lights and shiny balls with the replica of the star that looked over Jesus, standing at the top of the Christmas tree.

Children who had thought all year and prepared their list of things to be gifted by their favorite saint, St. Nicholas popularly referred to as Santa Clause, insert this list into long red socks which hang over the fireplace at home, little knowing that its their fathers who come dressed up as Santa and place their gifts beneath the Christmas tress.

The happiness on the children’s faces the next day on receiving their gifts is priceless. Gifts are been sent out to relatives and friends giving a feeling of togetherness. The whole thing is fun and keeps up with the spirit of Christmas. On the day of the birth of Jesus people visit churches to offer their prayers while some have a field day with their families.

In the end we could conclude that Christmas brings a welcome relief to everybody. Christmas, a festival of hope, belief and bliss is truly one of the best festivals celebrated today.

By Christina Fransz 

There is something about a certain time of the year that has an out of this world feel to it. A season that makes you feel so warm, a season that brings warmth to our hearts. A festival that makes you feel closer to God. It is a celebration of all the heavenly powers. It is Christmas! 

Christmas is not just a holiday to mark the birth of Jesus. The zeal, joy, happiness and the entire euphoria with which the month of December is associated, keeps the entire globe abuzz. It is rather not hard to accentuate that one single holiday (or rather a global bonhomie!!) is enough to aggrandize our lives and we feel elevated. No caste, no creed, no religion and certainly no fake beliefs, come Christmas, everything disappears. 

We generally associate the month of December with bone-chilling winds and falling flakes of snow, enough to send the shivers down our spines. When it is too cold nobody likes to go out of their homes to go down the stores and buy any stuff. However, Christmas time, no matter how cold it is, no matter if it’s snowing hard and it’s really cold, people are just ready and eager. Neither the cold weather nor the snow can stop the kids from looking at the sky with gleeful eyes, looking for their favorite Santa Claus… Ready to visit Earth with a bag full of gifts. And, of course, how can the lousy, gloomy and cold weather stop the grown ups from decorating their homes, and glutton for some fresh baked turkey. 

Christmas is also about gastronomic delights where you can satisfy your sweet tooth with all the lovely delicacies like plum cakes, puddings, cookies and what not. Apart from all these deliciously appetizing and euphoria of Christmas, it is undoubtedly a time when you can catch up with your family and loved ones. And even reach out to your far-off relatives. You can get together and have the most memorable time of the whole year in just one holiday. Also you get to know many new people, be them neighbors or people at the church. It is a festival that brings people together.  

Carol singing lights up the whole of the street with the singers visiting homes and spreading the spirit of Christmas. However, Christmas can never be complete without the midnight mass, which is held on Christmas Eve at the nearest church. The Christmas carols and the mass bring a calming and relieved effect on us. It is absolutely soothing, healing and divine. The children love it for the visit of Santa Claus with candies and gifts.

Christmas night gets over with children getting their gifts and relatives departing towards their respective homes after a wonderful lunch and dinner at the host’s home. Christmas ends for that year but its spirit lives on till the next year where another memory is created in people’s heart to live on till the next and so it goes on. This is Christmas, it keeps Jesus alive in our hearts and makes us love and appreciate our families and one another even more.

By Vivek Anand

Christmas! Aha the word itself is so enchanting and mesmerizing that it feels as adrenaline rushing & pumping throughout my body. Its not just a day, it’s a festival, a desire, a journey, an experience of joy and exhilaration, celebration and of course how can I forget giving and receiving gifts & above all love from my near and dear ones.

As a kid whenever I thought of Christmas my eyes started glittering with the dream of celebrations. Lights, candles, decorations, feast, I couldn’t have asked for more. A long list of my desires penned down onto a roll of paper and kept beneath my pillow, only to get up in the morning and find most of them fulfilled. Yes that’s Santa Claus for me, my friend, who turned my dreams and desires into reality.

Long days of shopping at the mall with my mom and my little sister, collecting all kinds of decorative and gifts for loved ones and in the evening playing good music with parents and their friends having a feast while sipping their favorite wine. It was awesome, an out of the world experience. I had never in my life felt so elated but at Christmas.

The significance of Christmas is the fact that lord Jesus was born on this day, but it means much more to people as not only they celebrate the lord’s birth but an episode of happiness, prosperity and vitality. I remember going to church on Christmas Eve, saying my silent prayers, then lighting candles at the grotto and finally singing Christmas carols with the choir. It seems as if the whole environment, the entire world has come together to celebrate this festival with light and joy.

In most part of the world the climatic conditions are colder this month of the season and people enjoy dancing around and binging on their favorite food. The best Christmas celebration I remember is of my school days. There was complete chaos and mayhem before the day, as we had to prepare for a lot of activities and decorations at the school. I remember, fighting and arguing with my friends & fellow students about who would become Santa Claus for that year and I indeed got a chance to become one after being much persistent.

I was dressed up in huge red color Santa pants and a jacket, stuffed with cotton to inflate my belly, thick white moustache and beard with a heavy bag full of chocolates. Friends closer to me insisted I give them extra chocolates but I advised that Santa has been impartial all his life and will continue to be that way. We called a singer called bobby cash (I still remember his name) who played jingles and some scintillating numbers with his guitar (and how can I forger his cowboy hat and dingo shoes).

For me “Nostalgia”, is the word synonymous with Christmas as whenever I think of December 25, the big day, I go back to my childhood days. The days of “Christmas”