Happy Christmas to everyone who is celebrating this occasion today. I checked up the history of Christmas on Wikipedia and found out lots of fascinating tid-bits about Christmas. Christianity Today also have some articles about Christmas. However, one of the facts that caught me by surprise was that "December 25 as a birthdate for Jesus is merely traditional, and is not widely considered to be his actual date of birth." Here's another article which talks about how Christmas was never meant to be on December 25th.
I remember when I was in Jeddah Prep, which was a British school in Jeddah, every December we would have a Christmas play in which entire class would perform. I can clearly remember my parents coming to one show where my class sang Christmas songs on stage. I don't remember what the songs were but I remember singing out words like Bethlehem, Jesus, Mary, Virgin and Star. I also remember another year, my class did the "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..." song, and I was one of the Turtle Doves, all dressed up.
However, the coolest thing was that Santa Clause would come and visit us in our classrooms, complete in his red suit, with black belt, red cap, white beard and a large sack of toys. When I would get my toy, I would be in such awe because it would exactly be the toy that I told my parents I wanted a week ago. It was later on in 5th grade where the secret connection between Santa and my parents was exposed and Santa was no more real to me anymore. :-)
By the way, December 25th each year is a public holiday in Pakistan because it is also the birth date of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. (Funnily enough, his death happened on September 11th.)
Xmas tree, Mina Salam, Dubai
(courtesy of Pbase.com, Brian McMorrow)
So happy Christmas to everyone celebrating it today and a very happy new year.
Mansur
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