The title says it clearly. I'm not a big Christmas fan so this will be the closest thing to a christmas blog entry I can come up with.When I was a kid, I loved the christmas season for the long holiday it came with but I totally dreaded the school christmas parties and the family reunions that I just HAD to go to only because it was the normal thing to do for a kid. It may sound extreme but think of it this way. It is never fun to be meeting old relatives when their idea of catching up is a "your cousins are better than you" sermon. The line "What can you expect from (insert absentee aunt or uncles name here)'s kids?" has burned it's marks in my young mind. After the sermon, we have to swallow what is left of our pride and line up for our annual Quezons, Osmenas and occassionally, Roxases. Talk about power tripping. I wished the ground would swallow me up and spit out my bones. The queasy feeling I had in my guts during the ride to the place is akin to knowing you are on your way to getting your ass kicked in a school yard brawl with the judo club captain. Speaking of school, Im glad I'll never get to open up another stupid picture frame as a christmas gift from someone in my class. I mean, a picture frame is something you give to someone you know nothing about... someone who is just a little better than a complete stranger, not someone you've been in class with for the past year or three. Come on! It would have been special had they put our photos in it instead of some blonde guy with perfect teeth. And what's with the fashion show? Where was it written that you HAVE TO wear the latest in kiddie fashion on primary school christmas parties? It was strange to me when I was nine... I wouldn't tell you what I think of it now.
The truth is, I don't hate Christmas. What I hate is how cheap we have made it to be. I am in no position to tell you what Christmas is about but I know what it isn't. Families don't come together on this day to put each other down. Ninongs and Ninangs arent cash machines to take money from. Christmas is not about parties. It's not about the Noche Buena or the gift giving or the new clothes.
well, that's it for this months rant. Reading back on what I wrote, I may have been unfair in describing our family reunions or the christmas parties in school. I have always been the odd one in the bunch. I must have been just looking at it wrong. I might just be an Ebenezer Scrooge after all. Except that I ain't an old miser, and I don't believe in ghosts.
