It is December again, and the Yuletide festivity is drawing dangerously close. However, the country is not smiling! With no thanks to our economy, prices of essential commodities have since skyrocketed, commuting is by no means pocket-friendly and the hope of a detty December experience seems very bleak at the moment. Indeed, it could be said that we are headed for a Christmas without chicken!

Growing up, my naive mind could not conceive of Christmas without jollifications. Perhaps, if my opinion was sampled then with regards to Christmas, my only response would have been that it is a time we ate rice and chicken with families and friends to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

However, know today that Christmas is more than chickens, and if only we had allowed the message of Christmas to sink deep into our minds, maybe our world would have been better off, and we would not have been living like slaves under the yoke of corruption, which has plunged our country into a deep mire of economic crisis.

Christmas is all about love, for it was love that made God send his Only begotten Son into the world to pay the ultimate price for our redemption (John 3: 16).

More so, love made the Son to accept without complaints to be born in the likeness of men. Mary would not dare accept to conceive Jesus, knowing fully well its implications for her as a pure-bred Jew without love and for Joseph, if it wasn’t for love, nothing would be enough to convince him on taking Mary as his wife.

However, it is sad that year in, year out, this great lesson of Christmas eludes us so that the festivity has been reduced merely to a social carnival, with no real implication for our Spiritual and moral edification.

We may have no chicken to celebrate this Christmas, but we must have love. Let this festivity be a time of sober reflection for all and sundry. Collectively let us see how our lack of sincere love has cost us a lot as a nation. For if there is love, a politician would not secure power at the mercy of the people, only to oppress and extort them and one man will not amass for his selfish aggrandizements, tons of wealth, at the detriment of millions who are languishing in pain and suffering.

This Christmas, for those who have the means, let us not make it about families and friends only. Let us reach out concretely to those around us who are disadvantaged and are in dire need of our assistance. Let us redirect the focus of this season to putting smiles on the faces of others, just as Jesus damned all consequences to put smile on humanity.

It is imperative to know surely that God will not judge us for our inability to eat chicken at Christmas, but we will be surely judged for our indifference and the different ways we added to the burdens of others rather than alleviate them. Christmas without chicken is not a crime, but Christmas without love is a punishable offence before the God of all.

Having established this fact, let us this Christmas spend within our limit. While it is not incongruous to catch all the funs and make all the merry this period, let us not forget that beyond this festive season, we have many demands to be met and many dreams to be pursued. Everything should be done with prudence at this time, for what will be the gain if we end up impressing people only to put ourselves at a great disservice and, worse still, leaving God unimpressed by our lack of prudence and lavish spending?

Let love prevail in this festive season and not our ego. So that in the end, all of us may have shared beautiful memories and, most importantly, we may profit from the merits won for us by the unconditional love of the Word made incarnate.