BY JULLIE Y. DAZA
OR, as former colleagues in TV used to say, “in the time of Nick.”
The more you think about it – nine months a er the first ECQ – the more you realize we need Christmas now, in the year of Our Lord 2020. St. Nick couldn’t be coming at a better, more aptly appropriate time. Naughty or nice, everyone but everyone awaits the spirit of Christmas with urgency to overcome the fears and irregularities of the times. Lights colorfully brilliant, trees lovingly ornamented, lanterns defiantly casting out the shadows of COVID nights.
Look up and see what’s in store against the gloom and doom. Programmed from way back in 2 (or 7?) B.C., the Christmas Star will light up the skies – Saturn and Jupiter, two stars shining as one on Dec. 21. The alignment won’t occur for another 20 years. This time, it will shine three days before the Eve when families gather for dinner and the exchange of gi s, four days before Christmas Day, the happiest in the Gregorian calendar. Today, more than ever, we want Christmas to light our way: “Be prepared for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The show begins tomorrow, Dec. 16. The novena of masses, held at dawn or more conveniently at dusk, signaling the arrival of the most arduously anticipated season. For the campus crowd, a crowd-pleasing lantern parade across the UP Diliman campus. For lovers of music, a Christmas concert, Adeste Fideles, on Zoom at 7 p.m. emanating from Santuario de San Antonio, Forbes Park. Three sopranos (Rachelle, Karla, Camille), three tenors (Otoniel, Frankie, George), and four choirs will interact with PPO to banish the Christmas blues (if any). Producer Eddie Yap invites one and all to enjoy some of the world’s loveliest Christmas melodies virtually through this link: https:// us02web.zoom.us/webinar/ register/WN_rP7JhX49Samzt7uFsLJ8Q.
As a gift-giving event, the concert raised funds raised for typhoon victims.
Quoting a mud-stricken Marikina resident, “To prevent another disaster, those contractors should stop quarreling.” Yes, stop the quarrying and the quarreling, let Christmas inspire hope that the pandemic will disappear and peace of mind and the security of our children, elders, doctors, nurses, and all frontliners, in uniform (other than PPE) or not will prevail. In the time of St. Nick, let it happen.
