Christmas Is For Us!
by Elpidio R. Estioko
While the true meaning of Christmas is about Jesus Christ’s birth and life, what it really means is about us.
Christmas is about the way we celebrate it, the way we spend our life every day!
Even when the world of our circumstances changes, the timeless message of Christmas is about the birth of God’s Son Jesus.
It is about how he came to give us love, hope and joy and that message doesn’t change from year to year, even when there is so much bad news and devastation in the world.
It should be good news worth celebrating despite the Russia-Ukraine and the Israeli-Hamas wars!
It’s about us because as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, it reflects on what we are doing and how we are internalizing His life and teachings in real life among ourselves, our families, relatives, friends, and acquaintances.
It’s how we live our lives in the name of Jesus… on how we give love, hope and joy to each other.
Is there love in your family? With your friends? With your relatives? This is what counts!
Let us not forget though that Jesus’ birth and life is a message of good news for us because it means we are never alone.
It doesn’t matter how hard or hopeless our situation may appear to be, God is there for us. We don’t have to journey through our challenges and struggles alone.
He understands them. He walks them alongside us.
I really subscribe to this message that His birth and life give us comfort and great joy to celebrate at Christmas.
As the angel said to a group of shepherds on the night Jesus was born, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke chapter 2: verse 10, NIV Bible).
It is one of the most well-known Bible verses about Christmas I learned as a child, born with religious parents because it is such an encouraging and inspiring message.
It is one of joy – because Jesus comforts and encourages us. One of hope because we are never alone; God is always with us. And one of inclusivity because it is for all of us.
This year, my family is celebrating it differently compared to last year. Unlike last year when my children spent their Christmas with us in our Milpitas home in California, we will instead go to them and celebrate Christmas with them in South Carolina and Florida.
We, my wife Delia, daughter May with his boyfriend Steve, and son Jayson, will be flying from our Milpitas residence to South Carolina where we will be spending Christmas with my daughter Tweety, her husband Jonathan and their 3-year-old daughter Ellie.
We will be joined by our son Jojo from Jacksonville, Florida with his wife Alvi and daughters Bibay and Kayla. During our celebration, we will be joined via Zoom by our eldest daughter Gigi from Sydney, Australia with her husband Eric, and our youngest child Paul who is in Kapolei, Hawaii.
It will be fun, as we used to do every year, having family bonding despite our distance and physical boundaries which we have always overcome to be together in the spirit of Christmas.
Celebrating Christmas this year with my family and friends is an opportunity to pause and give thanks for the hope and joy found in Jesus – our friend and savior.
It is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ more than just a Christian holiday or Christian festival, and more than an occasion to decorate our houses and put up the Christmas tree with many gifts under it.
As we exchange gifts with loved ones, it is out of remembrance of the gift God gave us in Jesus, regardless of the value or amount of the gift. It is not the gift but the art of giving, the gift that we are loved, are never alone, and can have hope for the future.
After Christmas, we plan to drive to New York and continue our Christmas bonding with some relatives and friends in the area. Then after a three-day stay in New York and suburbs, we are driving back to South Carolina and get ready to fly back to California on December 31 to be able to spend New Year at home.
Our Christmas this year looked different from last year, but the enjoyment of the true meaning of Christmas did not depend on the number of gifts under a tree we had or the type of food we had on our table.
The message of Christmas didn’t change because we were surrounded by family, and missing loved ones for a while and it was not affected by the house we celebrated this year.
We blended religious and secular customs with our family traditions, incorporating food and decorations. Christmas dinner included the traditional pansit, bibingka, puto, suman, ham, spaghetti, roast pork, salad, egg rolls, lumpia, and calamari.
And of course, my wife made sure we had 12 rounded fruits, as a tradition in the family.
Merry Christmas to all! Mabuhay! Aloha
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ELPIDIO R. ESTIOKO was a veteran journalist in the Philippines and an award-winning journalist here in the US. He just published his book Unlocking the Chain of Poverty: In Pursuit of the American Dream which is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Xlibris Publishing. For feedbacks, comments… please email author at estiokoelpidio@gmail.com).
