Recycle if you must, but be careful if you do

Christmas Time has again rolled ‘round, setting the recycling game rolling, too.

No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with recycling because more often than not, a recycled gift is better (read: more expensive) than the one you have in mind. Do you mind receiving a recycled gift? Are you asking me? No, I really don’t.

I confess: I do recycle. Who doesn’t anyway? Times are getting harder and harder, and buying gifts can drain your already limited budget (what with also the number of your inaanak growing like mushrooms, no problem though).

Go ahead, recycle if you must but be very careful if you do. Reminders: Don’t forget to remove the card addressed to you and, yes it helps, change the wrapper, too, because the gift you are recycling might have been given to you on your birthday so, wake up already, Pasko na po!

And before re-wrapping the gift, double-check the insides of the box because, without you knowing it, another personal card could have been left there by the makulit giver (for “emphasis,” you know!).

I’m amused no end by “recycled” stories about recycling and it won’t hurt with another retelling, right?

Trying hard to please, an employee gave his boss a pair of cufflinks which he had kept for so long. In haste, he didn’t even change the box, simply wrapped it and promptly handed it to the boss who, barely an hour later, called him to verify if the gift was really intended for him (the boss). You see, the cufflinks bore the initials not of the boss but those of the employee’s. For shame! The embarrassed employee rushed to the mall and bought an equally nice cufflinks to replace the recycled pair. Face saved!

A writer got a book from his friend actress who beautifully wrapped it with a copy of the newspaper the writer was working for, tied with a neat multi-colored ribbon. When he opened it, voila, he began laughing. He called the actress and jokingly told her, “Thank you for returning the book that you borrowed from me two years ago!” Hahahahaha!

This one is classic. My friend has two friends who were mortal enemies, who both gave him Christmas gifts. Having given up trying to make the warring friends reconcile, my friend got a brilliant idea. He re-wrapped the two gifts and gave them to the givers, as if they had exchanged gifts. At least in his own little way, my friend was able to re-connect his two friends who have since reconciled, bless them! (No, the two don’t know about that “exchange gifts” up to now. As the poet said, Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.)

A friendly suggestion: Why not give a gift that lasts forever and ever, sure to be enjoyed by your children, your children‘s children, your children’s children’s grandchildren, through generations ad infinitum.

Yes, Jose Mari Chan’s new Christmas album titled Going Home to Christmas, a follow-up to Christmas In Our Hearts (recorded 23 years ago) which has so far sold thousands upon thousands of copies, making it the best-selling local Christmas album of all time, recently awarded by Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA) as the Best Secular Album (equivalent to Album of the Year), Best Inspirational Album and Best Secular Song for Christmas Moments (equivalent to Song of the Year).

I have a copy of the first album and I’ve been playing it every Christmas season (and so do my friends to whom I have given copies as gifts, new ones, huh, not “recycled”).

Here are 12 of the 22 songs on Going Home to Christmas:

• Pagdating ng Pasko (lyrics by Jimmy Santiago, the same advertising guru who wrote the words to the Joe Mari’s classic song Hahanapin Ko). Said Joe Mari, “It’s my first time ever to sing in Filipino. I hope my Ilonggo accent doesn’t show.”

• Pinoy na Krismas (lyrics by Ogie Alcasid, Joe Mari’s inaanak, and performed by The CompanY).

• Song of the Firefly (Joe Mari’s duet with his 10-year-old granddaughter Ramona Isabel Bunag-Chan).

• That Time of Year (lyrics by Loren Steele, Joe Mari’s friend from South Dakota, and sung by Shiela Valderrama).

• Christmas Anyway (lyrics by Joel Trinidad and sung by Hanna Flores, daughter of Homer Flores who did the musical arrangement of Christmas In Our Hearts).

• Christmas Story (the classic Doris Day Yuletide song, interpreted by Joe Mari’s niece Teenee Chan).

• Let Love Be The Gift (Joe Mari’s duet with daughter Liza Chan-Parpan, lyrics by Freddie Santos).

• Christmas Moments. Joe Mari: “Some of our memorable family Christmas memories that I encapsulated in the song and which I sing with my children Liza, Joe, Michael and Franco.”

• A Christmas Song For You (a love song for Joe Mari’s wife Mary Ann Ansaldo).

• Christmas Air (lyrics by Trina Belamide, performed by American musicians and arranged by Yaron Gershovsky).

• December 25 (Joe Mari’s duet with Cris Villonco).

• Going Home to Christmas. Joe Mari: “I am dedicating this song to our kababayan working and living abroad.”

It’s the perfect album to play during the family noche buena.

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