(Today’s article is an abridged version of the December 26, 2011, column.)

It is a perennial lament after the burps of Christmas noche buena and the ripping open of gifts the next day. Amid the festivities we are inevitably admonished that people forget the Savior’s birth.

Then comes the cliche punch line: Why can’t we make every day Christmas?

Indeed, let us ponder seven tenets that can make every day December 25. For easy recall, we use the popular Filipino acclamation PASKO NA! (It’s Christmas!) to encapsulate seven paths to all-year Yuletide.

The first letter is P for Peace and forgiveness. The Israelites expected a conquering messiah to decimate their enemies. Instead, the Divine became human to bring mercy and peace to a world racked by discord with heaven and between men.

Let our first act of Christmas be to forgive a wrong and make peace with the offender. This is the greatest gift man can give—the very same treasure God gave us in sending His only Son to obtain mercy for our sins.

Next: A for Atonement and sacrifice. Even devout Christians relegate pain and mortification to Lent, keeping Christmas free from the nails and thorns of Calvary. Yet in the boundless joy of Christ’s birth, there was still sacrifice. The grueling journey to Bethlehem. Emmanuel in a manger. Fleeing Herod’s massacre of the innocents.

God the Son took on the agonies of human existence. Let us also embrace and offer them to the Lord.

S is for Silence and emptiness. At our company Christmas mass, Fr. Nolan Que urged us to create space for God’s grace by sharing what we have. Where we let go of possessions, more of heaven’s bounty can flow in.

As with closets, cupboards and coffers, so with other receptacles of one’s life and person. Through millennia God has chosen those who are nothing, empty of pride and power, and made of them the glorious pillars of His reign. The Pharaoh’s slave Joseph. The fugitive killer Moses. The sinful fisherman Simon Peter. The persecutor-turned-apostle Paul. And countless others graced from having fallen.

Moreover, the Lord’s wisdom endows those who silence their minds, hearts and souls, shutting out distractions of self and world to hear Him alone. As my Ateneo High School mentor Onofre Pagsanghan says at his inspirational talks, only after silence comes sacredness, as “silent night” precedes “holy night” in the popular carol.

So for our third act of Christmas, let us create space for God’s word and grace by clearing our souls and spaces of worldly preoccupations. After such cleanliness in life and spirit shall come the overflowing bounties of Godliness.

K has to be for Kindness to others. The key word is the third: others. It’s not hard to be kind to kith and kin who are not strangers to us. But that was not the kindness the Holy Family sought at the inn. Nor was it the charity the Good Samaritan showed. “Others” means people we do not know or even like. As often as we can, let us do kindness to an “other.” As a picture is to words, a stranger gifted is worth a thousand friends feted.

Our fifth tenet begins with the letter O: Openness and oneness. In his book 50mething: Pieces of Prayer and Reflection, with 50 of his homilies, Jesuit priest Johnny Go spoke of many varieties of separation. Young and old, rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Economic, political and cultural divides. Christ’s message and mission are to close the gap, cross the border, create oneness out of the many fragments fissuring us.

We participate in that Christian quest by opening doors through the walls parting people, classes, generations, and nations. Every time we make the journey to shake hands with those across the no man’s land distancing us and them, we erode the barriers between us, our neighbor and God. So open the gate, reach out and say hello to an ‘other’, just as the Magi and the shepherds did two millennia ago.

Last two words: N is for News—the Good News (‘Gospel’) of our Lord. Let us constantly go back to the source of Christmas and its ever-renewing vision: the Word of God. Everyday Christmas cannot but include constantly reflecting upon Scripture. Hardly any of us hear archangels or sight heavenly bodies calling us to the Savior. But we have something greater: the holy writ inspired by God. Ponder and live it daily.

Finally, A for the Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and the End. Ang Puno’t Dulo.

Yes, Christmas is about peace and forgiveness, atonement and sacrifice, silence and emptiness, kindness to others, openness and oneness, and the Good News of our salvation. We miss the point, however, if we espouse and live the six tenets acronymed in PASKO NA!—but forget the seventh.

Christmas is first and foremost about Christ. And making every day Christmas means centering it on Jesus Christ, our Model, Master, Mission and Miracle Worker.

Let us pray to our beloved Brother, Teacher and Redeemer, listen to His word in silence and emptiness, serve Him in others, open our whole selves and society to Him, and heed His call to oneness in the Trinity.

Walk the seven paths of PASKO NA! and you can make it Christmas every day.

Ricardo Saludo serves Bahay ng Diyos Foundation for church repair. He heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, publisher of The CenSEI Report on national and global issues ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).