It's the season of caring, praying, gift-giving, singing and sharing in Canada – Christmas was celebrated this week and next week will bring the new year. Gone are the Fall days of Thanksgiving, when families shared turkey dinners and recalled the tribulations European settlers faced in North America as they struggled to survive and later prosper. Also gone are the Halloween nights when children, masquerading as ghosts, witches and monsters, knocked at neighborhood doors asking for chocolates or other goodies – or else. November 15 to January 15 is dreary in Ottawa – dark and dingy with snow and sleet. The sun reluctantly rises from its slumber around 7.30 a.m. when darkness still reigns. People leave their warm beds, but reluctantly. The sun, unable to withstand the gloom, disappears into the night around 4.20 p.m. People at work return home later, darkness their silent companion. This is the season when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him). Houses, offices and trees glow and glitter in a dazzling panorama of colors and patterns. People sing “jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way” and share cookies and goodies. In offices and shopping malls, fat, short men dress as Santa Claus – short for Saint Nicholas – and children climb on their laps and talk about the gifts they'd like to receive. Once in a government office my colleagues decided I should be the Santa that year. But I'm tall and not nearly as fat as Santa so a more worthy Santa was selected, much to my relief. Children write to Santa Claus for gifts and hope he'll load them on his sleigh pulled by reindeer, zoom through the air and drop the gifts in their houses through the chimney. They eagerly check their socks, and other areas, for the gifts. Dutifully, their parents lend a helping hand to Santa and quietly wrap and place gifts near the Christmas tree, natural or artificial, that glows in homes and will be discarded after the new year. Families go to church and share meals. Parliament shuts down and most government and private offices take on a festive air, with carol singing, eating and drinking. Ultimately, reality intrudes and it is back to school, offices and the daily routine for a people rejuvenated by the spiritual experience but exhausted by the partying and financially drained by the gifts they have bought. Around the middle of January, the sun finally sheds its lethargy and becomes impatient. It arrives earlier and leaves later as signs mount that winter's strength will ebb before long and it will be ousted by the rains of spring and the warmth of summer, with the chirping of birds and the bloom of flowers heralding the change. In this season people like to share with the needy, in Canada and around the world. Canadians on an average donate $446 each year. More than 23 million Canadians give some $10.6 billion annually to charities. In addition, 47 percent of Canadians volunteer about 156 hours of services each for a worthy cause. This comes annually to about 2.1 billion hours of free labor. Appeals for donations come from an amazing variety of sources – schools, universities, churches, mosques, hospitals, international aid agencies, food banks, shelters and others. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for example, notes that there are over 42 million forcibly displaced people in the world who have lost everything. Then natural disasters like cyclones, earthquakes, floods and droughts call for special help as do wars and civil strife. I give my charity mostly in Ramadan. While I spread it around, my favorite charities are Human Concern International, World Vision, Clean Water, Doctors without Borders, eyesight, orphans, widows, the elderly and Amnesty International. But Muslim scholars state that most charity must be distributed in one's own area. My wife and I have set up a foundation to help UN- and Canadian-approved charities in accordance with Canadian law, to help orphans, widows and the needy in Canada and around the world.
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, government official and refugee judge. He has received the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario and the Queen's Diamond and Golden Jubilee awards
