The Power of Christmas: A Timeless Reminder

EDITOR’S NOTE (PNG Herald)

This Christmas reflection by James Yoka was written during the 2025 festive season. As the year drew to a close, PNG Herald republishes this piece as a timeless reminder of the power of Christmas memories and the responsibility we carry to shape them for our children. Its message remains as relevant today as when it was first written.

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MAKE THIS CHRISTMAS MEMORABLE FOR OUR CHILDREN

CHRISTMAS FEATURE – By James Yoka

PORT MORESBY: As Christmas 2025 arrives, I am reminded of how important it is to create moments that stay with our children for the rest of their lives. Christmas is no longer celebrated the way it once was, but its power to shape a child’s memory has never changed.

For me, the Christmas that has stayed with me for more than forty years is the Christmas of 1980, when I was in Grade 4 at St. Joseph’s Mun Community School. My teacher that year, a woman from Pomio in East New Britain, taught us all the Christmas songs. Her name was Mrs. Sabina Grubb, and she is the reason Christmas music still touches me deeply today.

Every time I hear a Christmas song, my mind travels back instantly. I see her face clearly. I see my Grade 4 classroom, the other classrooms, the layout of the school, the flagpole, the mission bell, and the water tanks. I see the Gumanch River flowing beside the school, the Catholic mission station, the Gumanch Plantation, and I remember people like Dick Hagon who were part of that environment.

I recall vividly our parish priest, Fr. Joe Bisson — his face, his blue Ford bus with the engine at the back, the church building, and the big chrome church bell. I remember the pine trees lining the road from the end of the mission coffee garden to the Kimka tribe boundary, the mission cow paddock, and the familiar faces of the local Kimka people. It is a good feeling. I also remember Miss Pauline, who served faithfully as a church assistant.

These memories are vivid, alive, and precious. They have stayed with me because someone — a teacher, a priest, a community — made Christmas meaningful for us.

This year, I want to do the same for the young ones in my own family. In the last three weeks leading up to tonight, the senior members of my family have been teaching the young ones all the Christmas songs. The children have learnt them enthusiastically and will present them to us tonight. We will make this Christmas a special one to remember. My hope is that 20 or 30 years from now, these children will look back and recall this Christmas with the same warmth and clarity that I remember mine from 1980.

And so I want to encourage every parent, every guardian, every adult in Mt Hagen, in the Western Highlands Province, and right across Papua New Guinea:
Make this Christmas memorable for the children.

Create moments that will stay with them long after toys are broken and decorations are gone. Let them sing, let them laugh, let them feel the warmth of family and community. Give them a Christmas they will celebrate in their hearts decades from now — just as I still celebrate the Christmas of 1980.

Christmas changes with time, but the memories we give our children will last a lifetime.

Let us make Christmas 2025 a Christmas they will never forget.