The once-a-year festival is coming

JAKARTA (JP): That time of the year again... hunting for cards to send to nearest, dearest and whoever comes in between. I don't do this anymore -- haven't for a long time -- ever since I discovered that it does run to expenses. The thing is, what with having to slave away and living by myself, writing a stack of Chrissy cards is the kind of thing you tend to postpone until the last minute.

Even if you've been through it in time, it's mailing the confounded things that gets put off until tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... Besides, I'm not very good at coming up with, say, 60 short and succinct messages, all of them different. The words "thinking of you" -- or whatever -- somehow lose their impact if you have to write them 60 times.

So there they are, those un-sent cards, looking at you with accusing eyes. You heave a sigh, take them out of the envelopes and pen in additions that go something like this: sorry for being so late but my pet tokeh had a stroke, blah, blah, blah...

Anyway, I don't send Christmas cards and receive very few myself. They, I mean the ones I receive, never fail to make me feel guilty, but how could I possibly tell those who sent them not to do it? After all, it's well-meant and telling the senders not to do it is tantamount to telling them to stop feeling good. I just can't be that mean.

Neither have I been decking the halls with boughs of holly for umpteen years. As for going to church on Christmas, well, I used to go to midnight mass (I'm not Catholic, though) but stopped doing that too, what with everything being conducted in the vernacular and rituals having been simplified. Somehow I don't get the same spiritual uplift that I did when all was done the old-fashioned way: the atmosphere of heightened solemnity, the slow procession of richly robed priests who then say mass in sonorous cadences and in Latin, please -- benedictus qui venit in nomine Deo.

There's poetry there, and it does (or used to) make me feel that I'd come in the name of the Lord. The simplified rites, the use of the vernacular and so on, have done a lot to rid religion, faith even, of mystery. Of course it is all for the good of the many, but I happen to like a bit of that intangible thing called mystery. It's part of the variety that adds spice to life.

In Christmas there isn't much left of it either. There you are, standing at the exit of a supermarket on Christmas Eve loaded with last-minute purchases, there is a rainstorm going on that would frighten even Noah, you didn't bring your car because your husband (or wife) is using it to do HIS (or HER) last-minute shopping, and, as usual in such conditions, taxis belong to the world of science fiction.

There's certainly no mystery there, and you're trying desperately to remain of good cheer. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; but even if it doesn't, the grumbling you voice may well be only half-hearted. You see, there seems to be something about that final week of the year, something that has so little to do with glittering trees and ornaments, something tugging at your sleeve and compelling you to -- at least -- try to be a little less mistrusting, a little less cynical, a little less everything-negative. Maybe that's where the mystery lies. Good for you, if you keep it up long after that week has passed.

Have a very Merry Christmas and the happiest New Year ever.

-- Jak Jaunt