Lost Christmas?

COLUMNIST:
PRISCILLA OWUSU-ANSAH

The sense of loss is an irrevocable phenomenon that is inevitable however excruciating. I have endeavored to decipher the meaning of Christmas in my adult years especially as the dynamism and alteration of society and culture has come to stay, such transformation per se, in the environment I find myself in, has triggered a deeper expedition of my cognition to draw conclusions about what Christmas means to me or the next individual shopping for presents in the uproar of the season.

Some, like myself clamp to the belief that Christmas is a season of Godly love bequeathed to us which we must make a relentless effort to succumb to and share with mankind by performing the simple tasks such as sharing a warm smile, which William Arthur Ward declares ”is a universal language of kindness” as we live in harmony with the universe, a warm smile is cheap so we all can afford it, nevertheless, as others are entitled to their beliefs, the season represents something else. Well, welcome to the new meaning of a “new Christmas".

It means a time to spend what we do not have or lack, receive what we have but never lack, a time of increased insecurities resurfacing, a time of unwarranted competition, infighting or bad-mouthing, browbeating, a time of simply over and under doing the doable and the undoable.
Sadly as I may add, after a protracted observation in Sweden, it is a time when our Swedish friends go missing in action (MIA) to be with family and friends.
  Loneliness radiates through the pores of an international student at this time of the year and during this season moreover, I reckon that when we kiss our families and friends far and beyond goodbye, we carry a whole world with us to a new world to keep us company.

And finally, it is a time to see the die-hard tradition of Candelabras shimmering in the window of most homes in Sweden, a sight to be relished and remembered.
  What does this festive season mean to you? Gifts first, and all others such as family, values, morality can tag along? I infer, like me, you will start to nibble on your first course meal this season and begin to elucidate.

As we make merry this eminent season;
we should take awhile or two;
Say a prayer or two;
Ponder anew;
What does CHRISTMAS mean to me too?
God jul på alla (Merry Christmas to all)

Priscilla Owusu-Ansah is an International Masters Student at Stockholm University studying Economics/ Econometrics.