Centro Cultural Nicaragüense Norteamericano

Saturday’s Course

Level Ten

Essay

Christmas has lost its meaning

Written by:

Gabriela Stephanie Ramírez Arce

Managua, October 23th, 2015

For me “Christmas has lost its meaning”, is a true statement in twenty first century. As we know, Christmas is a date that represents the born of Jesus and the catholic people celebrates that, or at least, we’re supposed to celebrate it because of it. I won’t deny many people still shows up to the church and sit down for two hours to hear the mass and truly celebrate the born of the one we call our “Savior”. But nowadays, people has adopted other kinds of celebrations for Christmas, it has become a season of consumerism, in every corner you can see lights glowing and inviting people into the stores and malls to buy presents for everyone.

In the States, the celebration for the born of Jesus has become the celebration for the coming of Santa Claus to leave presents in our christmas tree. It is really a consumerism celebration, but I think the one who truly celebrates this consumerism are stores, malls and toy factories, because let’s face it, and they are the ones who gain the most on this “beautiful and family” season.

Now, here in Nicaragua it’s not only a season of consumerism for the toys and presents we bought for our loved ones, is also for the consumption of food, alcohol and fireworks, because yes, we are in a really cheerful country and Nicaraguans are very happy people who likes to celebrate things in the big way. As usual, in Nicaragua we celebrate Christmas by gathering around with all the family, making lots of food, buying alcohol (for the ones who drink) and buying lots of fireworks, so we wait till the clocks strikes twelve o’ clock and when it arrives, we hug each other and all that stuff. But the question is, what do we celebrate? I don’t think Nicaraguans actually celebrate the born of Jesus, I think we forget the main reason and just use this day as an excuse for celebration.

It is the birth of Jesus, the Son of God and our Savior, so it is important to recognize that over the years the true meaning of the date has been distorted and set aside.