The holiday season is here once again. I admit that I really love this time of the year, when everybody seems to be kind, generous,  and happy.  As years pass by, I started to not expect to receive material things. I am now more looking forward to our yearly family reunion, and Christmas get togethers with friends.

I always want my family to be complete during this season. For me I feel complete on Christmas day when my father gets the chance to celebrate Christmas in the Philippines. This year, he will be celebrating it abroad… with my sister. Yah, they are both abroad and thinking about it makes me feel sad. But still, I want to make this Christmas special.

New Year gives me hope and positive outlook for the coming 12 months. It is the time of the year when I reflect of how was the previous year, and plan of how to make the new year better.

I know that this year seems to be a sad Christmas for many Filipinos after all the calamaties that we’ve been through this year. It suddenly made me think of what is the true meaning of Christmas. Is it about filling up our homes with decorations? Is it about giving and receiving gifts? Is it about glamorous Christmas parties?

Well… partly yes. Those are actually traditions which we cannot remove among ourselves and I don’t see anything wrong with that. But if we think about it, Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. And His birthday teaches us to be kind and generous to others. There are a lot of ways to make this Christmas special if we would want to and it’s really not about spending huge amount of money.

I hope all of us will always keep in our minds our hearts the true meaning of Christmas. And I hope that this holiday season will be filled with love and happiness.

Posted in Opinion, Personal Tagged: Christmas, Holidays, New Year