Christmas or Xmas in Singapore

SINGAPORE — It is always refreshing to come to Singapore for weekend breaks. The greenery, the wide avenues, the general order and cleanliness it exudes can be a balm to a Manilan. I had come for an early Christmas to be with my children and grandchildren living here who cannot come to Manila this year. Although I come often to this garden city this is the first time I am here when it is all spruced up for the holiday season

I had always thought that there is no place that can outdo the Philippines in celebrating Christmas. After all, the Philippines is the only Christian country in a sea of non-Christian countries. And Christmas as some dogmatic Catholics will tell you is a Christian celebration because it celebrates the birthday of Jesus Christ. But there are others who will say this is not true. The origins of celebrating Christmas at this time of the year owe as much to pagan rituals. This is also the time of the year when pagans celebrate the end of the winter solstice. It is said that celebrating Christian Christmas at the same time as the pagan end of winter solstice was what we would now call a public relations coup. It was a stroke of genius to convert pagans to the new religion at the time. Yes, why not? That is the story of how everyone, whether Christian or non-Christian came to celebrate Christmas. The more accurate term in my mind to describe the festivities is the more encompassing term Xmas. Whatever you celebrate, just celebrate.

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That is also how I look at Singapore’s celebration. It is more Xmas than Christmas with all the commercial funfare — decorations and noise of street celebrations on Orchard Street. Although I was a little bit tired after the flight from Manila on the first day my children had other plans. We were going to rejoice and celebrate Xmas by taking advantage of a free tour for visitors on a double decker bus that brings them around to see the Xmas lights on Orchard Road. The open roof bus had a festive atmosphere with traditional and some not so traditional songs played through the sound system. With us in the bus were other Filipinos, Singaporeans, Malaysians, British. They came in all sizes and types..

Each section of Orchard Road had different themes starting with the snowmen in the blue section, the reindeer in the orange section and Santa in the red section. I could see my apo’s eyes popping with the sight of so much light and noise. By the way, as I was writing I told her I have also written about her. (Please, lola spell my name correctly — It is Isabel Phillips.)

These may have nothing to do with the nativity of Jesus Christ but in Orchard Street it was pure celebration. If I held back my children had a word for it kj (kill joy). So I erased all my notions of solemnity and correctness about the Christian meaning of Christmas and went along with the mood of joy whatever it was for. I sang, clapped and laughed with my apos like I had never done for a long time now until my voice was hoarse. I slept very well that night having celebrated what I think it was all about — liberation.

It was more about celebrating for celebration’s sake like the pagans did. Well not quite. The pagans were celebrating the end of long nights and short days. In those times, daylight was so important because they could plant and till the land longer so an added hour or so of light was always welcome. And why should they not celebrate for that? As the bus wended its way through the main shopping district and with the names of the icons of modern luxuries — Prada, Chanel, Gucci, etc. etc for us to see, I thought these may be the contemporary equivalent of pagan joys when they showed off their produce to the community. And it was around these bounty of food that they too had sang and danced, no differently from the visitors in Orchard Road. that night.

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Each section of Orchard Road had different themes starting with the snowmen in the blue section, the reindeer in the orange section and santa in the red section.

While enjoying the carols and the lights, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between the old concept of hoping for a good harvest what this might be in this modern era. Not that we don’t need a good harvest still, but in an urban environment it seems with the glittering lights and goods provided by Prada, Gucci echo the primordial desire for wealth and good times.

While enjoying the lights my ten year old nephew commented that he was worried about the carbon footprint of the Xmas decorations. The guide said that this year there were about a million lights used by the Singaporean shops. He was expressing the inevitable contradiction between man made climate change being discussed in Copenhagen and the human impulse for enjoyment and enrichment. Or is it?

Celebrating with goods and material possessions does not exclude belief in Christmas as Christians of the nativity of the savior Jesus Christ. What it does cultivate is tolerance that Xmas includes anyone whatever their beliefs are.