Secret Santa at XISS - #ChristmasComing

Christmas is both a sacred religious holiday and a worldwide cultural and commercial phenomenon. For two millennia, people around the world have been observing it with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature. Christians celebrate Christmas Day as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a spiritual leader whose teachings form the basis of their religion. Popular customs include exchanging gifts, decorating Christmas trees, attending church, sharing meals with family and friends and, of course, waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. Santa Claus is believed to be a saint named Nicholas who helped the poor and needy. St. Nicholas spent his entire wealth by helping poor’s and persons in need by providing them with gifts and valuables. This incident marks the birth of Santa Claus as St. Nicholas is said to be the protector of children.

Being a Jesuit institute, Christmas eventually becomes the main festival at our Institute when holy masses and feasts are observed in our Campus. We, the students of XISS tried to cherish the spirit of Christmas and Santa by organising a game called secret Santa. In this game chits were distributed among the students of the respective departments with the name of a student written on it. The student who receives the chit becomes the ‘Secret Santa’ of the student whose name is on the chit. The person gives gifts to the student secretly and the meanwhile the student on the other end tries to guess the name of his/her Santa. This game continues for a week after which we observe a small get together where the identity of Santa is revealed.

This game keeps the alive the spirit of Santa and Christmas but more importantly, it strengthens the bond between the students.

Materialistic things can give us joy for a particular moment but the bond so formed continues to be with us our entire life. Christmas is a festival of joy and brotherhood and we the students of XISS, try to keep that spirit alive from our small steps which make a big difference.

- By 

  Mr. Shivam Bhatia

  Department of Human Resource Management

  (Class of 2018)