Bangalore: Bangalore is gearing up for Christmas. Churches and Christian homes this week are busy with the preparation for the festival, decorating, putting up cribs, buying gifts, putting up Xmas tree, cakes, wines, and the list goes on.
Crowds are thronging Shivajinagar, Commercial Street, Avenue Road, Majestic, Neelsandra and Whitefield markets for their last minute shopping.
Apart from cribs, dolls, Christmas trees of various sizes, bells, socks, Christmas wreaths and balloons, there are also few new embellishments in the market this year, like dolls of reindeers on sledges, gold and silver cherubs, lanterns and snowmen that will make trees and cribs more attractive.
Most of the shops have put up attractive lightings that will last till the New Year. Cake shops and wine outlets across the city are being swarmed by customers.
St. Patrick's Church on Brigade Road is all decked up for the Big Day and a 50-member carol singing group has been doing the rounds in the city for the last couple of weeks, visiting all the families in their parish.
“This Christmas, the message is ‘giving and forgiving.’ Generosity and reaching out to the poor and needy is the message this Christmas brings,” says Fr. Sagayanathan, Parish Priest, St Patrick’s Church.
“We expect around 5,000 devotees to attend the midnight mass, and in this about 1000 would be non-Christians who drop along with their Christian friends as everybody is invited here. We will celebrate it together, sharing the joy, happiness and cakes, making it a cosmopolitan Christmas for central Bangaloreans,” he said.
According to the House of Archdiocese of Bangalore, St. Francis Xavier Cathedral at Coles Park has put up the biggest Christmas crib in the city with life-size statues and the Gothic theme as the cathedral resembles the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The crib will be on display from December 24.
