A small sized paper Christmas tree, was placed upright in front of the camp of the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ), where journalists hold regular protest meetings against curbs on media after imposition of emergency.
Present in the tree-placing ceremony were academics from the Quaid-e-Azam University, Professor AH Nayyar, the Secretary General, PFUJ Mazhar Abbas, anchor-person Hamid Mir, Christian minority leader, Julius Salik, and a large number of journalists including Afzal Butt and Aslam Butt.
When asked whether this miniature tree would be sufficient to mark the occasion, Salik promised that he would set up a real tree on the Christmas day, tomorrow. The Christian community would celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ at Churches and Cathedrals sing choir in the midnight mass to offer prayers for the Prophet-child born to Hazrat Mariam (PBUH).
They would also celebrate the coming of Jehovah's Kingdom and in anticipation of good tidings which Christ's birth foretells to adherents of the faith. Great literature defines the event as, "we are living, we are dwelling in a grand and awful time; in an age on ages telling to be living is sublime."
Although contemporary British authors produce secular literature, the interesting fact is that English and other literature of the European continent has been profoundly influenced by religious writings of St. Augustine and Bede's translation of the Gospels.
One must not forget that the Christians would focus on the celebration of nativity in the small village of Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, considered as the birthplace of Jesus, and therefore, a holy place for the Christians across the world. The city is also significant to Muslims and Jews equally as, Bethlehem, just five miles south of Jerusalem, was turned over to the Palestine Authority in 1995 because of it's Muslim majority.