Kathmandu, December 24:

Members of the Christian community will celebrate this year’s Christmas with great gusto and merriment as the day has been declared a public holiday from this year.

Christmas is celebrated to mark the birth of Jesus Christ and the initiation of Christianity.

“We are very happy that the government has declared Christmas as a public holiday. This year we will pray for the peace and happiness of Nepali people as we set our foot on a new Nepal,” Binod Gurung, president of Nepal Catholic Society, said.

Chirendra Satyal, media co-ordinator of Church of the Assumption, said they were expecting a much larger crowd this year. “We are organising separate mass in English and Nepali tomorrow.

Earlier we had to work even on the Christmas day instead of celebrating the festival with our family and friends.

This year Christmas will be celebrated with great fanfare, as different organisations are staging programmes throughout the Valley,” Satyal added.

Not only among the Christians, celebrating Christmas is slowly developing as a trend even among the non-Christian community. The concept of Santa Claus and merrymaking of the festive occasion are being followed by the non-Christian community as well.

Many stores in Kathmandu and other commercial towns in the country offer attractive holiday discounts, keeping up with the universal implication of the festive spirit and without limiting the festival for the Christian community alone.

“I love Christmas because I get many presents in my stockings and we also get to eat turkey,” said 11-year-old Sameer.

Christmas is a time for sharing love and celebrating the birth of miracles. Midnight mass is usually observed all over the world after which the festivities begin.

The festivities continue to the next day when people exchange gifts and presents with the loved ones. The exchange of gifts done love, sacrifice and giving.