Essence of Christmas

*For to us a child is born, to us a son is given—Isaiah 9: 6

WE are in that special season once again, a season of joy, of peace, of great tidings. A season when we celebrate the birth of Christ the King, the redeemer of mankind! Jesus is the reason for the season.

Christmas is not just a time for festivity and merry making. It is more than that. It is a time for the contemplation of eternal things. The Christmas spirit is a spirit of giving and forgiving. For many, especially children, the meaning of Christmas is simply how many good presents they get. But as we all know (hopefully), that’s not the real meaning of Christmas.

As we get older, we realize that there’s more to it than presents. Every now and then there will be a movie or news story on television about some truly generous giver. And with that, we are reminded of a better perspective on the holidays; that it is like Jesus said, “More blessed to give than to receive.”

We must also spare time to reflect on the essence of the period which is the love of God for humanity. This unquantifiable love is summed up in the popular bible verse John 3: 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish but have eternal life.”When we ponder on God’s love for us, we too are encouraged to share love with others, to embrace peace and be our brother’s keeper. When we are imbued with this love of God, we will be always willing to give a helping hand to those in need, to give succour and comfort to the vulnerable ones amongst others.

Anyway, the essence of celebrating Christmas season is not to have a house full of Christmas lights, having a tall and beautiful Christmas tree full of gifts underneath it and giving expensive gifts. Christmas basically means sharing what you have, not just the material things but also those that can only be felt like a warm, tight hug, a simple thank you, showing our appreciation to our loved ones and forgiveness among others.

Whichever of these are important to you this holiday season, just remember that it’s the thought that counts and that love is the most important thing in the world. When love governs our hearts and minds, everything will follow and we don’t need to wait for Christmas time to share our love to other people.

Equal rights, Equal opportunities

Equality is to make sure everyone has equal rights and opportunities. By law every organisation has an equal right opportunity.

Gender is one of the ways we need to consider in order to be fair and equal. This is achieved when a women and a man have the same rights and opportunities across the whole society, including economic participation such as a man and a women are both equally involved in a group called ‘be green’ in that group both the female and the male have equal chances to speak about the ideas and not being discriminated due to her gender saying she is a women and therefore she doesn 't understand anything so keep her to the side, or it could be vice versa because this is discrimination and everyone in the UK have equal rights which states to respect that persons nationality and accept them as they are part of society. In order to really know whether their has been equal opportunities the government measures women and men in a range of roles and compares them to other countries which effects the outcome for each country. Believing that one gender which is often males is naturally higher in status than the other is called sexism, sexism is used to justify the inferior treatment and stop opportunities of women. Sexism holds the belief that if a person is a women/man then they would not be right for the job without even looking at their qualifications.

In America, men and women appear to be equals, by having equal rights and equal opportunities. However, that is only how it appears to be. In reality, society has issued roles for each gender to feel obligated to strive towards or away from. It is difficult to be a woman in society, culture and religious beliefs have greatly influenced the roles that are expected from women by passing down the stereotypes and discrimination from generation to generation.