Opening Doorz

By Martin D’Souza | Opening Doorz Editorial | December 07, 2025

It’s Christmas time, and once a year, everyone rummages through their collections of Christmas Carols. CDs are a rarity now, but for those who keep their music close to their heart, the discs still lie snugly between the covers of their leather-bound albums.

Without fail, I play Kenny Rogers, Cliff Richard, and Neil Diamond, over and over again. Yet, tucked in between all these Christmas Carols lies Everyday It’s Christmas. I was introduced to this Album (Fr. Peter Gonsalves) sometime in 2002. It’s the unlit hearth. The small, glowing ember you find nestled in the ashes after the main fire has died down. Still radiating a deep, persistent warmth that outlasts the blaze’s flash and crackle.

The Unlit Hearth and Acoustic Balm

Fr. Peter Gonsalves’s album is a little slice of Yuletide acoustic balm. It’s one of those rare birds that flies right under the mainstream radar, only to nestle deep inside the hearts of those who know where to find the real magic. The stuff that doesn’t scream at you from the mall speakers but whispers truth into the chilly December air.

It’s the musical equivalent of a strong, perfectly brewed coffee on a cold morning—simple, warming, and satisfying. It’s got that enduring, worn-vinyl comfort that puts it up there with the annual must-listens from the big boys. Forget the glossy, overproduced holiday schmaltz. This is soul food.

It has been my go-to album, not just during Yuletide, but throughout the year. And because of the first track, I have realised that Christmas is not just December 25.

The Thesis: Beyond December 25th

The title track, Everyday It’s Christmas is the album’s thesis statement, really. It dismisses the entire commercial scaffolding of the holiday with a gentle shrug. What is Christmas, truly? It is the spirit of giving, of humility, of the divine residing in the mundane. The song simply asks: If this is the truth, why do we confine it to a single day? The lyrics nudge you, politely, out of your seasonal stupor. The gift isn’t under the tree; it’s in the quiet, persistent effort to be Christ-like every single day.

“Christmas comes just once a year, but in your heart you know for sure that Christmas isn’t Christmas if it doesn’t last forever.” So true. Only an enlightened soul can reach out to another with words so deep, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Simplicity Over Excess

This album, produced and re-tooled around the late nineties (a decade of musical excesses if ever there was one), arrived like a necessary truth serum. It rejected the era’s maximalist urge. The sound, thanks in no small part to the subtle, masterful touch of Amon Daniels’s orchestration, is so uncluttered it’s almost startling. It’s what happens when you decide the message is more important than the modulation. The guitar work is clean. The percussion is a suggestion, not a demand, and the overall progression is smooth.

And those young voices! Singers like Sandhya D’Mello, Anil Mohan, and Giselle Roncon, guided by Fr. Peter himself… they don’t have the weary, practised gravitas of seasoned studio professionals. They have something infinitely better: sincerity. Their singing is not a performance; it is prayer, lifted by youthful clarity and untainted belief. It’s the sound of the message being understood and lived, right there in the recording booth. It makes the hair on your arms stand up, not from a high note, but from a low, resonating truth.

From Album to Spiritual Journal

Then there are the deep cuts that elevate this from a Christmas album to ‘Spiritual Journal’. Let Me Start Again. Good heavens, what a song of repentance. It wrenches through your soul. It’s a theme that cuts across every faith and every human experience. It’s the annual clean slate we all crave. You listen to the pure, soaring melody and you think, “Yes, I need to start again. Right now. Not just next year, but right now, with this breath.” Yes, Everything begins with Him… the baby in the Manger, the Christ on the Cross!

And the theological weight of Although He Was the Son, a direct paraphrase of Philippians 2, the hymn of Christ’s kenosis, his self-emptying. To take a passage so dense with doctrine and render it as a soft, rhythmic devotional is a work of genius. It doesn’t lecture; it illuminates. It lets you meditate on the deep mystery of the God who gave up glory for a manger, a cross, and eventually, for a home in your heart. This is the proximity to God you feel. The music removes the distance, making the vastness of the divine accessible.

The Unshakeable Message

The album, as a whole, is a mirror held up to the listener. It doesn’t distract you with musical fireworks; it compels you to introspection. It’s the sound of a committed spiritual life. This sound is filtered through the beautiful, uncomplicated language of the Salesian tradition; a tradition centered on joy, simplicity, and finding God in the everyday.

And so, as the year closes and the familiar, boisterous Christmas carols begin their seasonal siege, you and I, let’s slip away. Let’s find our quiet corner, click play on Everyday It’s Christmas, and be reminded of the true, unshakeable message.

This Album is proof of the power of pure intention, simple composition, and the magical guidance of men like Fr. Peter Gonsalves and Amon Daniels, who knew that the most powerful sound in the world is often the softest.

And for that, we should be eternally grateful.

Also Read: O Holy Night: The Carol That Melts Hearts and Inspires Souls

Also Read: Fr. Peter Gonsalves: Weaving Faith, Philosophy, and Music into Timeless Melodies

Also Read: Fr. Mathew Thalanany: A Salesian Warrior (1929-2025)