It is a mystery how right through Europe, Xmas Day has remained a prized holiday. And this after the continent became flagrantly secularised. Now, there hardly is any other holiday with a significance as spectacularly religious as Xmas: it celebrates a moment when an omnipowerful God chooses to be reborn as a man. That development seems to me much more meaningful than when that same man-god – in line with what is believed – chose to die on a cross.
How can a moment of such a religous character remain still so powerful in a context that has been almost totally secularised?
A columnist in a local paper recently lamented that when he was in London in the middle of Xmas markets, he never saw just one manger holding the newly born baby-god.
I guess he hit the nail on the head. Even the meaning of Xmas has been reduced to a holiday in which joy is mainly revived by triggering consumption. Maybe the fact that this year for the first time ever, there have not been religious functions at Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral was also another symbol... that highlighted how in Europe, Xmas too has undergone total secularisation...?
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LABOUR GRASSROOTS
I cannot but smile when I read or listen to media analysts who, given the bitter events which have been unrolled these last weeks, just must conclude as follows: the Labour Party is ending up totally undermined and lost in limbo, lacking a moral compass that could keep it politically sound.
For the most part, such pundits come from the middle class. Many have been weaned in a tradition which considers the Maltese working class as lost for a brain and to be classified as of the inferior sort. The contrary happens to be the case: the Labour Pary grassroots... whether they come from the working or the middle classes... derive from real life families. They are grounded in the belief that life should be organised fairly, so that merit determines what people get, while those who find themselves in difficulties, should be given a leg up.
In a number of ways, I have been active in the Labour Party since more than forty years now. I always could see how it was the Labour grassroots which kept the Party rolling. And they are still there.
Labour’s political and moral strength remains untouched, because it is powered by the party’s grassroots.
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BOXES
As a kid, I never could understand why the 26 December had been labelled Boxing Day – a descriptor that used to be... still is... prevalent in Malta too. At the time, boxing as a sport was more popular (I think) than today. Fights would sometimes be held during the Xmas period.
I found it strange that the day following Xmas had been named for fighting.
Then I got to know that “boxing” referred to how, as a matter of fact, the 26 th. December was the time when one would be opening the gift “boxes” received on Xmas day.
But this too left me perplexed. Many of the presents my brothers and I would receive did not come in a box. More than that, no matter what package they got to be in on Xmas day, no one would wait till the next day to open them. You bet!