Seenu Hadin

The world awakens with the sound of bells,
Christmas is smiling at the door,
a star travels toward a cattle shed,
the sky has met the earth
In the light of the stars, along the mountain range,
in the festive light of Bethlehem,
a rain of flowers is seen to fall

Snow-white on wings takes flight,
glittering like pearls upon the branches,
the sun’s rays turn to white arrows,
everywhere it is like silver

Cascading down, combing the hills,
in gliding steps the water comes down,
shaking the dewdrops from its body,
day by day the rain-clouds grow heavy,
the Mahaweli river’s waters turn muddy,
Christmas comes, binding it all together,
in the rain-heavy month of Unduvap

Araliya flowers, garden white flowers
bloom, and the branches grow heavy with flowers,
in this month of Christmas

This is a Christmas carol painted almost entirely in images of nature, blending the imported picture-book snow of Western carols with the very real December landscape of Sri Lanka. It opens with the season arriving, the world awakens with the sound of bells, Christmas is smiling at the door, and the two great symbols of the story, a star travels toward a cattle shed while the sky has met the earth, heaven and earth joined at the Nativity, with a rain of flowers falling in Bethlehem’s festive light.

The middle verse borrows the dreamy imagery of a snowy Christmas, snow-white on wings takes flight, glittering like pearls upon the branches, and the sun’s rays turn to white arrows, everywhere like silver. It is the postcard Christmas of the wider world.

Then, beautifully, the song comes home to Sri Lanka, where December is not snowy but rainy. Day by day the rain-clouds grow heavy, the Mahaweli river’s waters turn muddy, the great river swollen in the rain-heavy month of Unduvap, the Sinhala name for December. And the real local flowers appear, araliya and garden white blossoms weighing down the branches in this month of Christmas. What the listener is left with is a distinctly Sri Lankan Christmas, one that can dream of snow yet celebrates its own true signs of the season, swelling rivers and blossoming araliya, as the world awakens to welcome the newborn King.