Second thoughts

Call me the Grinch but like many of my friends, I am having second thoughts about hanging around for the Christmas holidays. Given that Christmas is suppose to be for children and my only child is now 14 and claims she’s no longer a child, can I use all of the above as my justification to skip town?

I know I am not alone in my Grinchly thoughts. A friend whom I presume is out doing some Christmas shopping just shared her thoughts in the middle of traffic: “Is it worth it?” Imagine spending 3 hours in traffic in order to spend 30 minutes to buy a gift. I don’t know about you people but the smartest thing to do would be to make a list, go to the mall at 11 a.m., have lunch, go shopping, get a foot massage, have dinner, shop some more and then leave when the stores begin to close. That way all you’ll need is one day. If you don’t have time or can’t give up one day to go shopping, your problems are solved. You either don’t have enough friends or family to shop for or you’ve lost control of time and life. Welcome! Fellow Grinch! Before anyone makes snarky comments about limiting shopping to the mall, I got news for you fresh from veterans in the battlefield: Divisoria, tiangge and bazaars are constantly packed and you shop alongside pickpockets as well as having to fight for parking and walking a long way.

I confess that I DO NOT enjoy Christmas shopping. How can you enjoy searching for gifts for people who have it all? I mean how fair is that? Not only do they have it all, we who don’t have it all, have to find them what we think they don’t have. Increasing our level of challenge and difficulty finding gifts for them must be a ploy to entertain them as they watch us behind one-way mirrors rummaging through shops with prices we can’t afford. It’s a new TV series: “The Under Cover Boss Gets Even.”

Is it worth it? Yes I have to ask the question myself considering I too have to spend several hours limping around in search of a thing of beauty, practicality and value but nothing over P500. You’re getting a book, Mr. Big Shot!

Then there are those really deserving kids but they have parents who threaten you with the evil eye or the nostrils of disapproval if you give them a Golden Retriever puppy for Christmas. And just like the Big Shots these kids know current market prices because they spend most of their existence in malls and fastfood chains so you can’t buy them cheap stuff or you’ll hear their sugar coated sarcasm going: “Oooh… What I’ve always wanted!” Then there are those very loved ones, the spouse even, who constantly remind you that simple gifts will suffice and actually monitor the credit card billing for anything expensive. Where is the fun in that?

(Christmas gifts are suppose to be a measure of our love, our capacity and one of the few times of the year we can pay blood money for numerous infractions incurred over a 12 month period. It is also our collective once a year ritual of offering sacrifices to idols: our boss, our mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children and the people we draw income as well as draw blood from during the rest of the year.

How can I keep it simple when even our head pastor Steve once said: “The word ‘moderation’ does not exist in Cito’s vocabulary.” Every year I suffer from “withdrawal symptoms.” I confess that I used to be an illegitimate extravagant gift giver. Illegitimate because my income or lack of savings did not justify the kind of gifts I gave in the past. Then I met Karen and after 27 years together, 20 years married, she has placed invisible restraints on my mind, my eyes and especially on my wallet. Even now she is already talking about “giving to a charity.” Well I learned enough in school that charity begins at home. Besides, they say the Lord loves a cheerful giver, so can I cheerfully give to myself?

Clearly I am trying to be entertaining while trying to make a point, what that point was already got lost in the Christmas rush or drowned in the lack of interest therein. Unlike previous years we already have a 10-foot tall totally artificial pine tree just needing to be picked up and set up as our Christmas tree. The only hitch is that it is 83 kilometers away in Lipa City where we banished almost a year ago. No one seemed alarmed that it had not been set up nor did anybody showed any interest. Karen protests by saying that Christmas trees don’t go up in Netherlands until the 23rd of December, at least as far as her friends and family were concerned. But that is simply because they don’t have real perennials or trees that never die, never turn brown, are wash and wear and with fragrance in a can.

Besides, Filipinos need to celebrate the longest Christmas on the planet because it is the one time where they actually celebrate a reason for celebrating and not celebrating defeat, massacre, assassination or cosmic tragedies. Christmas is the only time of the year where we celebrate being saved, not being occupied, marching to death or having a three-day picnic and causing traffic on EDSA.

It’s the one time of the year when a few pieces of stick, string, paper and glue creates a star of hope we call the parol. It’s the one time of the year when we are filled with gladness for the people who have shown us kindness. It is the one time of the year we turn to the innocence of a child and rejoice for the children around us. Kings brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. God gave us his love and his life. We’re not kings and we’re not God, but giving our love to others would be the best and most expensive gift we can give.

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