A Suggestion to Hindu Parents, by Ramesh Chitnis
Christmas of the year 2007 is fast approaching. There will be festive mood all around. The shops will be filled to the brim with wares, inviting customers, luring children pestering their parents to buy things for them. This is the season of “give and take.” The parents “give” and the children “take!”
The shopping malls will be crowded, attracting waves of customers. The shops and the homes will compete with one another to put on their best shows, in the form of lighting and decorations, inside and out. The meals, the parties, the visits to relatives, friends and neighbors, the exchange of gifts and greetings! The singing at homes and in the streets, the programs on the radio and TV! “Good wishes” flowing all around us! Oh, all the fun and frolic!
Added to this, are the presents and gifts from “Santa Claus!” The children express their wishes early in the season, to their parents. The parents, in turn, tell them to ask from “Santa.” In the malls, the children list their wishes to the innumerable “Santas” in various shops. The centerpiece of all this will be the Christmas tree-with a star on top. Go anywhere, you will see trees-small and huge, real and artificial, beautifully decorated, glistening with tinsels and small candle-like lights! Some of them are placed in the center of the towns, as place of pride. Truly, in the Western world, it is a festival of lights. The festive mood is in the air far in advance of the actual Christmas day!
And, in all of the above, where do we, as Indians-particularly Hindus-stand? We have Diwali, our Festival of Lights, just a month or two before Christmas Day. But being in a minority, we celebrate it in a very subdued manner, as compared to the celebrations in India. We celebrate Diwali and other festivals in our own communities, in temples, in homes, with relatives and friends, etc. We celebrate exactly the same way mentioned above, but on a much smaller scale. We light our homes from inside, we decorate the halls where we hold the function to celebrate in groups, we have lights in our temples.Yet while we, thus, have brightness around us in our community, and a festive mood, outside all life is normal, with hardly any ripple otherwise! The world around us is minimally affected. And exactly the same thing happens, particularly, in our homes and minds, at Christmas time. For us, all life is normal, with not a ripple otherwise. We may be affected, but in a very limited way. Not emotionally, anyway!
But, in case of homes with young children, it is a different story. Because it is difficult for young children to understand why we do not celebrate Christmas, parents try to bring the same festivity and happiness in our homes. Many Hindu families in the West keep Christmas trees at home and sometimes keep presents under the tree, for the sake of children (even though they have already received presents at the time of Diwali). In our minds, we may feel uneasy. But we do so for the love of our children, for the joy we wish to see on their innocent faces.
It is, however interesting to note that there are millions of Christians world over, of many denominations, who do not celebrate Christmas. They do not believe that Jesus was born on December 25th. As a matter of fact, it was some time at the end of August or early September. If you ask the priests in the churches, they grudgingly admit it. The references in the Bible itself, that at the time of birth of Jesus, the formations of stars in the night skies and the weather around- the shepherds bringing their flocks in, at nights, because the nights were “getting cold” suggest this. So how did these celebrations on December 25th come to being?
In ancient Europe, the Pagans (indigenous people of Europe; much of their culture is very similar to our ancient Hindu culture) used to celebrate a festival of their Gods, at the end of December. A king, converted to Christianity and determined to covert the Pagans to Christianity, tried hard to change this custom of his subjects, making them celebrate the birth of Christ instead. However, as he failed to change the traditions and beliefs of the Pagans, he decided to make the conversion easier by merging Christianity with existing Pagan traditions. So he declared the date of birth of Christ as December 25th, as this was around the same time as the winter solstice festival already celebrated by the Pagans. (So much for the truthfulness and honesty of the followers of the “Apostle of Truth!”) Even the tradition of the Christmas tree came from the Pagans, who held trees and all of nature in great respect.1
However, coming to the subject proper of this article—having Christmas trees in our homes. By all means, let us have them, for the sake of our young children. But with a Hindu touch! Do you remember our elder folks talking about a tree “kalpa taru” or “kalpa vriksha” or “kalpa drooma?” A tree under which you make a wish and it would come true? For us, what else is a Christmas tree, but a ‘Kalpa Taru!’ And the star on top? The “dhruva tara,” (The Northern Star)! The guiding light! Steadfast, never wavering, steering us in the right direction in life.So, keeping our conscience and tradition in tact, we can safely bring a Christmas tree in the home and impress upon the minds of our children that the Christians have borrowed the idea from us. The Christmas tree is like the “Kalpa Taru” and the presents and gifts under the tree are the wishes granted by it. Thus, our homes will not remain “dark” and our children will not be deprived of the enjoyment of the season. So, let us celebrate Christmas with the same gusto as Diwali, bringing our own social and cultural spirit in it. If Christians can twist Christmas to their advantage, why not we?
1This information is from the literature published by the “True Church of God,” Pasadena, California, USA. See their site on the Internet.
The author of this article, Ramesh Chitnis, is a swayamsevak (volunteer) of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh. He is a retired electrical and mechanical engineer. You can contact him at rvchitnis@hotmail.com.
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