I HAVE a friend who has migrated to Australia. What is our cool season in the Philippines — and winter in the Northern Hemisphere — is simmering summer in Australia. There are, to be sure, Christmas celebrations, but he tells me that for the larger part of the population, it is just one more day of the year. The sad fact is that the appeal of Christmas is on the wane.

Christmas is the celebration of the promise of meaning, the guarantee of worth, the ultimate victory of life. Christmas without Christ is an utterly inane celebration.