The story of the Chirstmas Tree:Synopsis

Today, Christmas is as much of a secular festival as a religious one. The exact date of Christ’s birth is unknown, but the Church fixed the celebration on 25 December. This is preceded by the Advent season, which is a sombre but hopeful time in which Christians prepare themselves for Christmas, when they believe God came into the world to save mankind from the Evil. The Christmas tree forms almost an indispensable part of the Christmas celebrations. The decorated Christmas tree, common in German countries for centuries, was introduced to Britain by Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria.
According to the Holy Bible, the Christmas tree is associated with the birth of Jesus Christ. It is generally believed that on the night of His birth, all living creatures came to Bethlehem to greet him with gifts. The olive tree came along with its fruit and the palm with its date but the fir had nothing to gift the newborn king. So an angel taking pity on the fir tree commanded a cluster of stars to shine on its beautiful boughs. Baby Jesus smiled on seeing the lighted tree, and blessed it. The tree is always lighted with many decorations on it, to please little children during Christmas. It is also said that the triangular shape of the tree symbolises the Trinity and points upwards towards the God. While the light, gift and decorations on the Christmas tree mean heaven, love and charity respectively, the light symbolise the light that Jesus Christ cast upon the lives of the people. There lies the legend behind the Christmas tree.
The celebration is incomplete without a Christmas tree. This tree is regarded as one of the most dominant symbols of Christmas celebrations all over the world. It is normally a conifer that is decorated with lights and colourful ornaments during the auspicious Christmas days. The Christmas tree originated in Germany in the 16th Century.
The custom of carol-singing was revived mainly in the 19th century. It was also the time when Christmas crackers were invented. The Trees have been a symbol of good luck ever since.
Traditionally, Christmas trees were not brought in and decorated until Christmas Eve and removed only on the day after the twelfth night. To have a tree decorated before the Eve was considered as a bad omen.
The best selling trees during Christmas celebrations are those named Scotch pine, Douglas fir, Noble fir, Fraser fir, Virginia pine, Balsam fir and White pine. Other types of trees, such as cherry and hawthorns are also used as Christmas trees. These trees are widely available in the market and are in great demand all the world over. Christmas trees take an average ten years to mature.

Franklin Pierce was the first US President to introduce the Christmas tree to the White House. The first national Christmas tree was lit in 1923, on the White House lawn by President Calvin Coolidge.

It is also a time for Christmas carols. The popular carol merged with the folk song and with the broadside songs sold on city streets. Composed carols gained variety in form in the 17th century, while their texts began to centre on Christmas. The familiarity of a large number of carols among the general public is probably unmatched by any other musical form.
It is a time of great commercial activity and family reunions. The familiar image of Santa Claus moving in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, distributing toys and gifts to every child across the globe is known worldwide. Very little is known of Jesus historically, but information can be gleaned from the Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible, and the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. Many still believe that Jesus was the revealer not only of human life in its perfection but of divine reality itself.
The ultimate principle of the universe, called by many different names in various religions, was called “Father” in the sayings of Jesus, and Christians therefore call Jesus himself “Son of God”.
Love is, in the New Testament and in subsequent Christian doctrine, the most decisive among the attributes of God. Christianity teaches that God is almighty in dominion over all that is in Heaven and on Earth, righteous in judgment over good and evil, beyond time and space and change; but above all they teach that “God is love”.
The creation of the world out of nothing and the creation of the human race were expressions of that love, and so was the coming of Christ. Thus Christmas is a celebration of that “love” throughout the world. It brings with itself a breeze of love and faith with it.
Being one of the most awaited festivals across the world, Christmas is all about carols, Santa Claus, goodwill, and love

Dusk the Saki: O’henry

Dusk The Saki: untold and uncut version

I was in a rickshaw, on my way home yesterday, when the lights went out.

But as I sat there, the nervous rickshaw-puller carefully weaving his way though the narrow by-lanes… I discovered a whole new array of sights and sounds that I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed!
The darkness had somehow transformed the familiar lanes and neighborhoods, suddenly, everything was quiet and still. Noisy people stopped talking abruptly, and even the stray dogs fell silent!
The sudden darkness had caught everyone off guard.

Fireflies! Who knew we had fireflies in the city!? And so many of them! But they’re there…these tiny, eerie glowing green lights in trees and bushes. I guess they’ve always been there…I just never noticed!

And I realized that you could pull weird faces in the dark, and nobody would notice!
So I did!
I smiled as widely as I could…at random people! And I pulled some rather bizarre faces…stuck out my tongue at absolute strangers! Then the headlights of a car flared up, and I stopped! But as soon as the headlights faded, I resumed grinning weirdly!

Once I got home, I ran up the stairs, rather noisily (the people I annoyed, would probably imagine I was some bratty ten-year-old!), and walked straight into our apartment, without stopping to acknowledge our rather unpleasant neighbor…I could just pretend I didn’t see him in the dark!

Darkness is liberating!

The Third kind Person

I always believed there were two kinds of people —one who praised and applauded a performance being staged only after they saw it. The other kind of people never praised or commented on a performance they did not see.
I believe it was a Tuesday. Our family and some other relatives had been planning the whole day long on places to visit that evening Calcutta(it is about the time when Kolkata was called Calcutta).
Many bright ideas (like the evening show of “Dil chatta Hai” or even going to the restaurant) had been already voted down.
Just when it started to seem that the whole plan of going out to enjoy ourselves was becoming a waste of time, my aunt popped up the question, “Why not go watch a play at Rabindra Sadan?”
Since there were more grown-ups in our group, (all obsessed about the different kinds of plays being staged, especially ones in Bengali), they readily agreed to the proposal.
Before long, everyone’s eyes were searching every nook and corner of The Statesman and other papers to get hold of a play that would commence from around 6:30 p.m. that day.
And within a span of about 30 minutes we were off to see a certain play. Though I went there with much enthusiasm, a little way through the performance and I was thoroughly bored.
So I thought the best thing to do was to take a little nap on my seat just so that I could stay awake the whole night with the elders in our house during their ‘adda’ session. My wretched luck! The person just beside me had already started snoring loudly and it was an impossible to sleep comfortably due to his loud nasal rumblings.
I had to cancel my schedule and began to watch the whole play with better attention.
Even after the play was over, that man slept on. With much effort I was able to wake him up so that he could make way for me to get up and walk out.
At last, he opened his eyes, stood up and spoke out, “Wasn’t the play fabulous? Wasn’t the acting simply great? I enjoyed it immensely!”
I did not want to believe it, but at the end had to admit the truth: I had met the third kind of people!