The Only Christmas Gift You Can’t Buy

Here is the winner from the Philippine Women’s College of Davao in this year’s Inter-College Journalism Conference (ICJC) Editorial Writing Contest held on December 9, at the St. Peter’s College of Toril. May this bring you a precious and merry celebration of Christmas!

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As the Christmas season etches forward, people enter from shop-to-shop, maxing out their credit cards for a gift later to be thrown underneath the pile of Christmas presents they built over the year. It’s all spend or else you’re the bad guy, or spend because it’s Christmas. It makes Christmas a day to look forward to, not for the spirit of it but for the personal gain it creates. A corporate machine filled with bling and discount prices, is this what Christmas is all about?

An average Filipino person would plead otherwise, stating that Christmas goes over materialism, but statistics tend to differ. A whopping 80% increase on gift sales blossoms in the early days of December, which furthers to 95% days prior. The concept of buying gifts to commemorate loved ones is not malpractice, but what is the amount found in dumpsters the following year. Around 25% of these presents are discarded, drilling holes to the beliefs of an average Filipino person. Why is this so? You may ask. People have a fear of lying about these presents’ value to them, and the fact that they share a similar fear further exemplifies what is wrong with modern-day Christmas. It is too materialistically-based, which is not what Christmas is all about.

It is based on this little thing called Christmas spirit. It is abstract, without color, but it’s one of the most beautiful things discovered by man. Instead of binding toward each other to exchange fake smiles and, in eventuality, gifts, you hug each other for moral support and love. You spend the day of Christmas by sipping tea against a cozy fireplace. Smiles alive, people understand, that’s when you bring out your Christmas gift. Not as a gift, but as an accessory. That is not the gift, your presence is worth more than anything money can buy.

How about you? What’s your gift this Christmas?

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Congratulations Rogationist Academy-Davao for organizing the ICJC for the 4th day. Thank you also for making DC Herald and DXGN a partner to this worthy endeavor. All for truth! – CAV