I try to compose myself as I start to write this short message. Then all of a sudden a question comes to me “What if Christmas is not simple?”

The first answers that come to my mind are these: It is merry but not meaningful. It is expensive and filled with bountiful celebrations but not focused. It makes us busy and tired but not happy. It is filled with gifts but scarce with love. It is party-filled days but boring-filled nights. It is more on fancies but less on authenticities, more of Santa Claus but less of Jesus. In short if Christmas is not simple it lacks depth and focus.

Aha! That is why Christmas is originally simple, so that we may have focus and we may go into the depth of its meaning, “the Child Jesus is born in our midst let us rejoice”. It is only us with our consumerist tendencies that make this season not simple. Thus we stumble here and there and many of us tend to be lonely when this season would come because it becomes an unaffordable happening.
If we just look at the shepherds in our little Belen and feel what they felt we will be reminded that they are the first ones who have understood the real depth of Christmas and they are the ones who have the first experience of the real joy of the season.  Because  of their simplicity they saw, they understood, and they enjoyed  the real Christmas.   And this is what I wish for everybody to consider: the focus, the depth and the joy of living our Christmas.

A meaningful Christmas to all!