The Arrival of the Christmas Holidays

Large department store marketing billboards in the subway. In recent years, I only return to Paris—my home—at year’s end. Going home for the holidays always brings a stronger atmosphere and deeper affection; a warm home is the sum of everything, the spiritual cohesion, and the gentle haven for all wanderers. Returning to Paris feels like a goldfish finding water, body and mind at ease, because I return to my warm home, to everything I am, entering the whole, becoming more complete within it.

At year’s end, the arrival of the global, universal Catholic "Christmas" comes. In this super-consumer era, the holiday carries a strong commercial air, especially surrounding its dazzling commercial mechanisms. From large department stores to boutiques or Christmas markets, amidst the cheers and festive atmosphere of crowds shopping, one feels the footsteps of Christmas approaching step by step in metropolises from Taipei to Paris. Large commercial posters in the Paris subway have long previewed holiday marketing campaigns. City streets, from department stores and malls to markets, are busier than usual. Prosperous commercial districts, alleys, and even city halls are decorated with lights and ribbons. Especially the world-famous Champs-Élysées is dazzlingly brilliant every year (its lighting becomes global headline news), and the giant wheel at Place de la Concorde is extraordinarily magnificent.

This year, the sides of the Champs-Élysées uniquely became an EU Christmas market. Dazzling goods and various gifts were available. Amidst the bustling crowd and endless stream of people, one seemed not to feel the financial crisis or economic recession, but only a scene of prosperity. Christmas thus enters everyone’s home. Friends, was this year’s Christmas tree particularly expensive? Indeed, prices soared. From the spiritual religious Christmas to today’s commercial materialistic Christmas, at this very moment, the homeless shelter in Vincennes, Paris, is unprecedentedly full. In this polarized society, giving warmth and extending care to vulnerable groups or those needing help is the revelation of Christmas, the ideal of human coexistence and common prosperity—not a utopia.