The once-a-year festival is coming

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