Mga Bungang Isip ni Christopher Zoloan

Christmas in Our Hearts

Christmas in Our Hearts
(December 4, 2011)

   It was December back in 1992 or 1994, those years when conjecturally, the Pinatubo agony was still in the subconscious nightmare of the people while the city still tried to be mightily progressive on top of it all. Olongapo has indeed been through a lot of developments during those years.
I remember being sick and all, (so my being sick of colds/flu this past days brought me back to this memory), and going to school one day while still a groggy pale, skinny child, our teacher, Ms. Cruz (I think) presented us with the lyrics of "Christmas in Our Hearts" by Jose Mari Chan. We all stumbled trying to memorize the lyrics and sing our hearts out with our out-of-tune voices. Our only way back then of accompanying the tune of the song was through a cassette recording recorded from an FM airplay which gave off a considerable amount of static/hissing sound. A compact disc back then was rare & would have cost a lot & an original cassette tape would be around P130- such things were considered luxury during those days, when children had only P5-P10 for their 'baon'. At home, I showed my older brother the lyrics & we tried singing it there, because, as I was explaining with childish enthusiasm, we would sing it during our Christmas party. And it was a definitely meaningful song with meaningful tune, with children singing with pure music, without rowdiness... without noise...

   My thoughts now return to the present. I'm playing the entire Jose Mari Chan Christmas album through a phone's mp3 player. What was considered a luxury before is now at the palm of people's hands & easily obtainable.
I really wonder now if children could sing meaningful Christmas songs the same way we did back then? As I see it, almost all children sing along a handheld, with rowdy, cheap, meaningless, rude songs, with neither true musicality nor inherent delicadesa. Do they understand what they were singing about, like the way we did?

   Christmas in our hearts... I hope for Christmas to inflitrate children's hearts, for them to understand its true meaning, not just to celebrate Christmas with all those merriment over materialism.

   There was a recent commentary I heard about Christmas. Well, historically it cannot really be proven. No one knows when the Lord was really born and when science would be considered & align the facts with the written texts, the Lord could not have been born on a winter's night. But what's with all those fuzz? Why was Christmas there anyway? It's to celebrate the heart of Christianity, to celebrate its virtues & true meaning. It may be slowly dying as some supposed but in my heart, & in the hearts of most others who understand it, Christmas remains.