This isn't quite a recipe, but the previous article below inspired me to post this article of mine, which was published in 2011. Hope you enjoy it.
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My children love Filipino bistek (beefsteak). The combination of soy sauce
and fresh lemon makes it a very tasty meal and every time I make it for my children I think of my mother,who taught me how to cook it the Toledo way.
Like any typical older-generation Filipina, my mother didn’t use measuring cups or spoons when she cooked. She added ingredients as she marinated and cooked the meat. “You’ll want the sour taste to complement the salty flavor of the soy sauce,” she would say, “but neither should overwhelm the other.” And she would
simmer, taste, add a little bit more of this, simmer, taste, add a little
bit more of that, until the meat was perfectly flavored.
Easy, I thought. If I put too much of one thing, I just needed to add a little bit more of the other. But it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that because it took me many failed attempts and countless batches of bistek look-alikes before I got the nod of approval from Mom.
I learned to make Mom’s adobo in the same cook-taste-and-adjust method. I taste the broth several times as the meat is cooking to see how each flavor complements the other ingredients. A pinch of oregano, a bay leaf or two, onions, garlic, pepper and salt, soy sauce and vinegar.
She always said there are three secrets to a good adobo: plenty of garlic, lots of patience, and properly cooked vinegar. “You should never ever stir the pot when you’ve just added vinegar in,” she warned. “You have to wait for that strong sour taste to slowly blend in with everything that’s already there. You can’t rush it because the vinegar will be uncooked and the flavor of the adobo will be off.”
When I first came to the States I worried that I would never again get the taste of bistek right because none of the groceries carried calamansi. Mom advised me to learn to use what was available,because in her words, “That won’t be the last thing you’ll find different here.” So I experimented first with lime, then with lemons,until my bistek came close to the taste I knew from back home. “All
things come together in the end,” she said, “with a little bit of compromise, resourcefulness and creativity.”
There she goes again, I thought—another life lesson dispensed with her cooking tips.
But I learned to cook tinola with sayote and spinach instead of green papaya and sili leaves. I use mustard green instead of kangkong, and fine powdered table salt instead of the rock salt I was so familiar with.
One change my family welcomed with gusto is our breakfast menu. Here in America, we usually have cereal, toast or a bagel for breakfast, but on weekends and holidays, we like to cook a fairly heavy meal. Thick-sliced SPAM grilled on the pan until the edges are toasty and crunchy; corned beef sautéed in garlic, onions and tomatoes; and Vienna sausages with fried eggs and rice. Once a month we step up our family breakfast extravaganza into a brunch,adding into the mix tocino and longaniza and tinapang bangus. We all, particularly our American-born, Caucasian spouses and in-laws,love the variety and mix of our Filipino-American breakfast.
In Mom’s Life Lesson 101, this is proof positive that we have accepted and incorporated American ways into our lives and allowed some of ours to blend into the Western culture. Not that Mom ever said so. That wasn’t her way.
Mother had a subtle, indirect way of communicating. She hardly ever gave direct orders, for instance. If she needed something done she would frame it as a question, or a comment, a theory, a thinking-aloud kind of wish. That meant we had to read between the lines and we had to pay close attention to her words.
She was a gentle, soft-spoken woman who avoided harsh words and confrontations at all cost. Ironically, she was blessed with assertive, strong minded, and self-reliant off springs. I think she figured out early on how to get the best out of us without too much trouble. So she suggested rather than commanded, she hinted and temporized, and she sneakily laced her cooking lessons with bits of
wisdom that were hard to spurn.
She taught me to be flexible, to be patient and subtle, not to rush to conclusions, and to build each relationship with a light touch—whether personal, social or professional—and always open to change and accommodation. Above all, I learned from Mom the wisdom of that old adage: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” And that’s me in essence—I never ever give up.
I wonder if that was the lesson Mom wanted me to learn all along, and does she know, now that she’s sleeping with angels, that she succeeded?
By Belma Villa, Manila Standard Today
CHSNAF: Founded in 1990 by graduates of the Holy Ghost College/College of the Holy Spirit in Manila, Philippines residing in North America and established in 2005 as a 501c3 public charitable foundation.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
A Lumpia Love Story
Pardon me if you have already read this before, but I thought it was a cute story worth sharing. It also reminds me that this blog would be a wonderful medium to post our favorite Filipino recipes. I am now hungry for lumpia.
The story goes like this:
And elderly man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite food, lumpia.
Gathering his remaining strength, he lifted himself from bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort, gripping the railing with both hands he crawled to the kitchen.
With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven. For there, spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite food, lumpia.
Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?
Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a crumples posture, his parched lips parted, the wondrous taste of the lumpia was already in his mouth, seemingly bringing him back to life.
The aged and withered hand trembled on to the lumpia, when he was suddenly smacked with with a spatula by his wife, "Git out of here!" She shouted. "Dis are por your puneral!"
Grace Gallego Rebullida
The story goes like this:
And elderly man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite food, lumpia.
Gathering his remaining strength, he lifted himself from bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort, gripping the railing with both hands he crawled to the kitchen.
With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven. For there, spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite food, lumpia.
Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?
Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a crumples posture, his parched lips parted, the wondrous taste of the lumpia was already in his mouth, seemingly bringing him back to life.
The aged and withered hand trembled on to the lumpia, when he was suddenly smacked with with a spatula by his wife, "Git out of here!" She shouted. "Dis are por your puneral!"
Grace Gallego Rebullida
Monday, January 9, 2012
CHSNAF: Coming Home
CHSNAF: Coming Home: This article was published March last year in the High Blood/Opinion column of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I'm sharing it here because I'...
I find this article quite interesting. I do identify many, if not all, of Belma's experience of the Philippines today, esp. Manila. I have lost my usual landmarks to identify streets so I am quite lost in Manila. My usual haunts do not look the same...like I am walking and riding around a strange city. Yet the people are the same..the kindness and hospitality. At the same time, traffic has increased despite having freeways and overpasses. Also, there are soooo many people. I feel that the absence if not lack of government policy on population control prevents Philippines from progressing as fast as its Asian counterparts. I am not talking about abortion, however, free contraceptives and other methods of birth control information ought to be disseminated widely throughout the country. I also wonder that despite the arrival of noveau middle class OFW families, I wonder what effect(s) an absentee OFW parent has on the families in terms of values (family vs. material benefits), the breakup of a once intact family, children growing independently or children growing up without supervision and guidance, the upgrading of the education of children (private school vs. public schools) and economic survival of the country as reflected in the humongous malls and rapid increase of condominiums. I hope that Philippines is truly developing in the direction that its people purport their destiny to be.
I find this article quite interesting. I do identify many, if not all, of Belma's experience of the Philippines today, esp. Manila. I have lost my usual landmarks to identify streets so I am quite lost in Manila. My usual haunts do not look the same...like I am walking and riding around a strange city. Yet the people are the same..the kindness and hospitality. At the same time, traffic has increased despite having freeways and overpasses. Also, there are soooo many people. I feel that the absence if not lack of government policy on population control prevents Philippines from progressing as fast as its Asian counterparts. I am not talking about abortion, however, free contraceptives and other methods of birth control information ought to be disseminated widely throughout the country. I also wonder that despite the arrival of noveau middle class OFW families, I wonder what effect(s) an absentee OFW parent has on the families in terms of values (family vs. material benefits), the breakup of a once intact family, children growing independently or children growing up without supervision and guidance, the upgrading of the education of children (private school vs. public schools) and economic survival of the country as reflected in the humongous malls and rapid increase of condominiums. I hope that Philippines is truly developing in the direction that its people purport their destiny to be.
Coming Home
This article was published March last year in the High Blood/Opinion column of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I'm sharing it here because I'm sure some of you can relate with my experience coming home after years of being away from the Motherland. I had a chance to have a nice lunch with some of our classmates, organized by my HS gang mate, Butching Yoingco.
Let me know what you think of this post.
*******************************
THE FIRST thing that greeted me was a blast of hot air. I breathed in deeply, trying to take in as much of the warmth as possible. Home, I thought blissfully. How could I have ever left it? Twenty hours earlier, I was shivering in the freezing rain and snowy landscape of wintry Seattle in Washington State where I have resided these many years. I was back in Manila for a short reunion with my group mates from the University of the Philippines, English Majors’ Class ’69.
My visit turned out to be not just a reunion with my college friends (and a precious, stolen moment with my high school classmates) but also a much-needed reunion with my home country. Seeing Metro Manila again, up close and personal after many years of absence, was alternately invigorating and exciting, frustrating and annoying, but also inspiring and uplifting. So much had changed in the intervening years since I left; some good, some really bad, and a few were downright comical.
Condos. I don’t know when this new trend in housing began, but it was certainly not during the time I lived in Manila. The present-day Metro Manila skyline is dotted with condo high-rises, and in the short time my friends and I were there, we were able to enjoy the comforts of three condo units that had all the modern amenities of Western living. It seemed that each person I met during my trip either owned a condo or was related to/knew someone who did.
I dare speculate that condos are the new status symbol in the Philippines. A condo can be the perfect summer vacation home for balikbayans, a handy bachelor’s pad, a rental property, a convenient pied-à-terre for the rich, and a good nest egg for the smart investor. Whatever the reason, I found the boom in condos initially perplexing, as I have always believed the Filipino people to be industrious and hard-working but essentially poor. “Who has money to buy all these condos?” I mused.
Shopping malls. The question of who has money to spend takes me right to my daughters’ favorite past time—shopping. There were only three department stores worth mentioning when I left: Rustan’s for the more exclusive shoppers with money to burn; Shoemart and Robinson’s for average folks like me. The Manila I came back to had evolved the concept of department stores into huge shopping complexes and malls: Glorietta, Rockwell, Shangri-La, Greenbelt, The Podium, Landmark. There were SM malls (Shoemart’s progeny) everywhere we went including the nearby towns of Laguna, Batangas and Cavite, and doubtless all across the country. And there was the biggest of them all (fourth largest in the world and third in Asia), the SM Mall of Asia. “MOA,” as the natives call it, combines the finest in Philippine shopping and entertainment and boasts average daily foot traffic of 200,000. Two hundred thousand!!!
Again the question: “Who has money to spend in all these malls?”
OFWs. The answer, once I got it, was pretty obvious. OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) and their hard-earned dollars are changing not only the landscape of our home country, but also our shopping habits, our language and the hopes and dreams of our children. Many of our countrymen toil at menial jobs abroad so their families in the Philippines can build new and better homes and their children can go to good schools that in the past, only the rich could afford. OFWs come home with heads held high, money in their pockets to buy SUVs and condos and iPads and other tech toys. They throng the malls and restaurants and movie theaters—God bless them—but alas, they also clog our streets even more.
Traffic. This one is under the category of “really bad.” My friends and I discovered to our chagrin that it is no longer possible to spend the day hopping from place to place in Manila and Makati as we used to do in our youth. Traffic has gotten so bad that you have to factor in hours of frustrating time spent on the road waiting for the vehicles around you to move. Filipino drivers do not let lanes, or traffic rules, or common courtesy deter them from reaching their destination as quickly as possible. As a result, driving in Manila has become a test of courage, cunning, resourcefulness and ruthlessness. On the other hand, I’ve never seen such skillful driving in all my life, as our drivers Jing and Sonny exhibited. I guess you need to, if you are to go anywhere in Manila.
Our people’s propensity for disregarding rules was most apparent in some of the signs I read along the road. “Accident-prone area,” one such sign read. To emphasize the point, the next line warned, “May namatay na dito.” Coming up the toll area from Cavite was a large sign, “Exact Toll,” and under it in equally large letters: “ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGE.” I had to smile in spite of myself. Only in the Philippines!
Still, even with all the changes that I found coming home, getting together with my college friends was joyous and memorable. We quickly made a pledge to meet again in two years. Australia, or Oz, as the Aussies call it, or Spain, to trace whatever of our roots can still be traced, then on to Provence in France. It didn’t matter. The plan would come together just as this first one did and we would be there to share impressions, trade stories of heartaches and triumphs, and try not to think of our waning years coming quickly upon us.
God willing, we would look once more into each other’s eyes and see only the 18-year-olds that we once were.
Let me know what you think of this post.
*******************************
THE FIRST thing that greeted me was a blast of hot air. I breathed in deeply, trying to take in as much of the warmth as possible. Home, I thought blissfully. How could I have ever left it? Twenty hours earlier, I was shivering in the freezing rain and snowy landscape of wintry Seattle in Washington State where I have resided these many years. I was back in Manila for a short reunion with my group mates from the University of the Philippines, English Majors’ Class ’69.
My visit turned out to be not just a reunion with my college friends (and a precious, stolen moment with my high school classmates) but also a much-needed reunion with my home country. Seeing Metro Manila again, up close and personal after many years of absence, was alternately invigorating and exciting, frustrating and annoying, but also inspiring and uplifting. So much had changed in the intervening years since I left; some good, some really bad, and a few were downright comical.
Condos. I don’t know when this new trend in housing began, but it was certainly not during the time I lived in Manila. The present-day Metro Manila skyline is dotted with condo high-rises, and in the short time my friends and I were there, we were able to enjoy the comforts of three condo units that had all the modern amenities of Western living. It seemed that each person I met during my trip either owned a condo or was related to/knew someone who did.
I dare speculate that condos are the new status symbol in the Philippines. A condo can be the perfect summer vacation home for balikbayans, a handy bachelor’s pad, a rental property, a convenient pied-à-terre for the rich, and a good nest egg for the smart investor. Whatever the reason, I found the boom in condos initially perplexing, as I have always believed the Filipino people to be industrious and hard-working but essentially poor. “Who has money to buy all these condos?” I mused.
Shopping malls. The question of who has money to spend takes me right to my daughters’ favorite past time—shopping. There were only three department stores worth mentioning when I left: Rustan’s for the more exclusive shoppers with money to burn; Shoemart and Robinson’s for average folks like me. The Manila I came back to had evolved the concept of department stores into huge shopping complexes and malls: Glorietta, Rockwell, Shangri-La, Greenbelt, The Podium, Landmark. There were SM malls (Shoemart’s progeny) everywhere we went including the nearby towns of Laguna, Batangas and Cavite, and doubtless all across the country. And there was the biggest of them all (fourth largest in the world and third in Asia), the SM Mall of Asia. “MOA,” as the natives call it, combines the finest in Philippine shopping and entertainment and boasts average daily foot traffic of 200,000. Two hundred thousand!!!
Again the question: “Who has money to spend in all these malls?”
OFWs. The answer, once I got it, was pretty obvious. OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) and their hard-earned dollars are changing not only the landscape of our home country, but also our shopping habits, our language and the hopes and dreams of our children. Many of our countrymen toil at menial jobs abroad so their families in the Philippines can build new and better homes and their children can go to good schools that in the past, only the rich could afford. OFWs come home with heads held high, money in their pockets to buy SUVs and condos and iPads and other tech toys. They throng the malls and restaurants and movie theaters—God bless them—but alas, they also clog our streets even more.
Traffic. This one is under the category of “really bad.” My friends and I discovered to our chagrin that it is no longer possible to spend the day hopping from place to place in Manila and Makati as we used to do in our youth. Traffic has gotten so bad that you have to factor in hours of frustrating time spent on the road waiting for the vehicles around you to move. Filipino drivers do not let lanes, or traffic rules, or common courtesy deter them from reaching their destination as quickly as possible. As a result, driving in Manila has become a test of courage, cunning, resourcefulness and ruthlessness. On the other hand, I’ve never seen such skillful driving in all my life, as our drivers Jing and Sonny exhibited. I guess you need to, if you are to go anywhere in Manila.
Our people’s propensity for disregarding rules was most apparent in some of the signs I read along the road. “Accident-prone area,” one such sign read. To emphasize the point, the next line warned, “May namatay na dito.” Coming up the toll area from Cavite was a large sign, “Exact Toll,” and under it in equally large letters: “ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGE.” I had to smile in spite of myself. Only in the Philippines!
Still, even with all the changes that I found coming home, getting together with my college friends was joyous and memorable. We quickly made a pledge to meet again in two years. Australia, or Oz, as the Aussies call it, or Spain, to trace whatever of our roots can still be traced, then on to Provence in France. It didn’t matter. The plan would come together just as this first one did and we would be there to share impressions, trade stories of heartaches and triumphs, and try not to think of our waning years coming quickly upon us.
God willing, we would look once more into each other’s eyes and see only the 18-year-olds that we once were.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
You Begin Again
First of all Happy New Year to CHS Alumnae everywhere. May 2012 bring us all new blessings!
I am sharing an article written about Class 65 Toni Villaraza Palenzuela who was featured in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I thought you might find it interesting.
'You begin again'
By: Nini P. Yarte
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Grace Gallego Rebullida
Thursday, December 15, 2011
The Real Magic of Christmas and New Year
Hello, classmates,
I thought I would share yet again this piece I wrote regarding Christmas and New Year. It's a fun, whimsical look at the coming holidays and I hope you all enjoy it. Do add your comments at the bottom. Those are always so helpful. Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
Belma Toledo Villa
*******************************************
I sometimes think of Christmas and New Year as fraternal twins, outwardly different but fostered by the same magic. Christmas is the more popular sister -- gay and frivolous, boisterous and scintillating. She is known for her excesses; spending money with abandon, gorging on treats and drinking herself silly with family and friends. The ultimate party girl—that’s Christmas.
She loves nothing better than organizing family reunions, office parties, choral concerts, and Nutcracker ballets. Christmas is generous to a fault and has made lavish gift-giving a global tradition. Children of all ages wait for her with bated breath. They know Christmas is a weaver of dreams and a sorceress of great wizardry. She conjures all kinds of toys and fanciful tales of busy elves, reindeer that fly and a jolly old man with a long white beard and a belly full of jelly.
For most of the year Christmas stays hidden and unnoticed, and sadly, there are those who prefer not to see her at all. In fact if some extremists in the United States prevail, Christmas will one day be totally annihilated, replaced by an atheist impostor named “Winter Holiday.” (I can only hope my home country does not also devolve into this asinine secularism.)
How many of us remember Christmas’ humble origins in Bethlehem, especially now that public display of the manger and the holy family is increasingly frowned upon? Instead, the commercial mystique surrounding Christmas has gone viral. Those merchants outside the temple whom Jesus tried to banish are back in full force hawking their merchandise through Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Tweeter.
There are hundreds more of these Web-based infidels and their numbers are growing exponentially. Even as I type these words I know the merchants are camped behind my computer screen ready to launch their assault through cyberspace. Their Internet sniffers have discovered I am looking for new tech toys for 14-year old Cole, clothes and accessories for Sharon and Carla, and a new winter coat for Jason. My Inbox is deluged with special offers and holiday promotions, all geared toward my interests and online shopping history. I am powerless to resist such onslaught. I lay my neck on the block, prepared to bleed my hard-earned dollars with a big smile on my face.
Christmas does that to people—makes them act silly and reckless and impetuous. It is the time of the year for hugs and kisses and teary reunions, overblown sentiments, grand gestures and promises we can’t keep.
It’s good to know that after all the excitement, the frenzy and disruption that Christmas brings, New Year is soon upon us.
New Year is the more responsible sister who stays in the background while Christmas takes center stage. When it’s her turn, she is ushered in with a big bang, a lot of noise and a huge party for old times’ sake.
But after the champagne and the confetti, New Year rolls up her sleeves and resolutely tries to undo the harm done by her frivolous sister. Bills have to be paid down; unwanted pounds have to be shed, waistlines trimmed and unsightly bulges vaporized. The house has to be put back the way it was before Christmas let loose her colored lights and balls, ribbons and wreaths, candles, bows and mistletoes.
New Year goes shopping—not for gaily wrapped gifts, but for dozens of totes and boxes of all shapes and sizes. In the next few weeks she will sort, organize, label and put away Christmas and all her glittery accessories. In her own methodical way, New Year conspires to keep Christmas hidden until it’s time for her to break out and cast her magic spell all over again.
In the meantime there are lists to be made: The Best American Essays of 2011, The Year’s Top Inventions and Technological Gadgets, The Top Ten Stories of the Year; the worst- and best-dressed female entertainers; the best bumper stickers; and the best and worst Super Bowl ads of 2011. My favorite remains David Letterman’s top 10 reasons why there can never be a Filipino-American US president. Number one on the list—Air Force One
does not allow overweight Balikbayan boxes.
But the list that really matters is our personal New Year’s resolutions. Traditional favorites include spending more time with family and friends, learning something new, breaking bad habits, and becoming more fit. I like what one comic once said, “Next year I will no longer waste my time relieving the past; instead I will spend it worrying about the future.”
No matter what, it is the challenge and the disappointment of unmet resolves and broken promises that gives Christmas that edgy, frenetic energy that some of us find so addictive. We celebrate the year’s imminent demise with great abandon and cheer knowing we have failed yet again, but it’s all right; New Year gives us another chance to make up and try once more.
It is this message of hope and renewal that ultimately transcends the growing crassness and commercialism of each holiday season. It is the real magic at the heart of Christmas and New Year.
I thought I would share yet again this piece I wrote regarding Christmas and New Year. It's a fun, whimsical look at the coming holidays and I hope you all enjoy it. Do add your comments at the bottom. Those are always so helpful. Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
Belma Toledo Villa
*******************************************
I sometimes think of Christmas and New Year as fraternal twins, outwardly different but fostered by the same magic. Christmas is the more popular sister -- gay and frivolous, boisterous and scintillating. She is known for her excesses; spending money with abandon, gorging on treats and drinking herself silly with family and friends. The ultimate party girl—that’s Christmas.
She loves nothing better than organizing family reunions, office parties, choral concerts, and Nutcracker ballets. Christmas is generous to a fault and has made lavish gift-giving a global tradition. Children of all ages wait for her with bated breath. They know Christmas is a weaver of dreams and a sorceress of great wizardry. She conjures all kinds of toys and fanciful tales of busy elves, reindeer that fly and a jolly old man with a long white beard and a belly full of jelly.
For most of the year Christmas stays hidden and unnoticed, and sadly, there are those who prefer not to see her at all. In fact if some extremists in the United States prevail, Christmas will one day be totally annihilated, replaced by an atheist impostor named “Winter Holiday.” (I can only hope my home country does not also devolve into this asinine secularism.)
How many of us remember Christmas’ humble origins in Bethlehem, especially now that public display of the manger and the holy family is increasingly frowned upon? Instead, the commercial mystique surrounding Christmas has gone viral. Those merchants outside the temple whom Jesus tried to banish are back in full force hawking their merchandise through Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Tweeter.
There are hundreds more of these Web-based infidels and their numbers are growing exponentially. Even as I type these words I know the merchants are camped behind my computer screen ready to launch their assault through cyberspace. Their Internet sniffers have discovered I am looking for new tech toys for 14-year old Cole, clothes and accessories for Sharon and Carla, and a new winter coat for Jason. My Inbox is deluged with special offers and holiday promotions, all geared toward my interests and online shopping history. I am powerless to resist such onslaught. I lay my neck on the block, prepared to bleed my hard-earned dollars with a big smile on my face.
Christmas does that to people—makes them act silly and reckless and impetuous. It is the time of the year for hugs and kisses and teary reunions, overblown sentiments, grand gestures and promises we can’t keep.
It’s good to know that after all the excitement, the frenzy and disruption that Christmas brings, New Year is soon upon us.
New Year is the more responsible sister who stays in the background while Christmas takes center stage. When it’s her turn, she is ushered in with a big bang, a lot of noise and a huge party for old times’ sake.
But after the champagne and the confetti, New Year rolls up her sleeves and resolutely tries to undo the harm done by her frivolous sister. Bills have to be paid down; unwanted pounds have to be shed, waistlines trimmed and unsightly bulges vaporized. The house has to be put back the way it was before Christmas let loose her colored lights and balls, ribbons and wreaths, candles, bows and mistletoes.
New Year goes shopping—not for gaily wrapped gifts, but for dozens of totes and boxes of all shapes and sizes. In the next few weeks she will sort, organize, label and put away Christmas and all her glittery accessories. In her own methodical way, New Year conspires to keep Christmas hidden until it’s time for her to break out and cast her magic spell all over again.
In the meantime there are lists to be made: The Best American Essays of 2011, The Year’s Top Inventions and Technological Gadgets, The Top Ten Stories of the Year; the worst- and best-dressed female entertainers; the best bumper stickers; and the best and worst Super Bowl ads of 2011. My favorite remains David Letterman’s top 10 reasons why there can never be a Filipino-American US president. Number one on the list—Air Force One
does not allow overweight Balikbayan boxes.
But the list that really matters is our personal New Year’s resolutions. Traditional favorites include spending more time with family and friends, learning something new, breaking bad habits, and becoming more fit. I like what one comic once said, “Next year I will no longer waste my time relieving the past; instead I will spend it worrying about the future.”
No matter what, it is the challenge and the disappointment of unmet resolves and broken promises that gives Christmas that edgy, frenetic energy that some of us find so addictive. We celebrate the year’s imminent demise with great abandon and cheer knowing we have failed yet again, but it’s all right; New Year gives us another chance to make up and try once more.
It is this message of hope and renewal that ultimately transcends the growing crassness and commercialism of each holiday season. It is the real magic at the heart of Christmas and New Year.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Why Blog?
Hello everyone! A suggestion was made to start a CHSNAF blog....well, here it is.
The word "blog" is one of the most popular worlds on the internet today. This buzz word is one of the most popularly searched terms on the net because increasing numbers of people are trying to figure out what all this blogging is about. A blog is a web log, or an online public journal written for all kinds of reasons and purposes.
Our members were hoping that this would promote more dialog among us. The http://chsnaf.org website is where we will find news and developments with regards to CHSNAF and our alma mater, College of the Holy Spirit. Although it is updated regularly, it is by nature static. A blog is interactive and dynamic, but only if there is active participation.
We are looking for a few authors who will contribute articles that will cover topics of common interest to us CHS alumnae as women, mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, wives, etc. in different stages of our lives. Some of us are retired and have grandchildren while some of us are perhaps just starting or in the midst of our careers.
So watch out for more posts, pass this information along to other alumnae, help make this site a success by commenting and participating in our conversations.
The word "blog" is one of the most popular worlds on the internet today. This buzz word is one of the most popularly searched terms on the net because increasing numbers of people are trying to figure out what all this blogging is about. A blog is a web log, or an online public journal written for all kinds of reasons and purposes.
Our members were hoping that this would promote more dialog among us. The http://chsnaf.org website is where we will find news and developments with regards to CHSNAF and our alma mater, College of the Holy Spirit. Although it is updated regularly, it is by nature static. A blog is interactive and dynamic, but only if there is active participation.
We are looking for a few authors who will contribute articles that will cover topics of common interest to us CHS alumnae as women, mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, wives, etc. in different stages of our lives. Some of us are retired and have grandchildren while some of us are perhaps just starting or in the midst of our careers.
So watch out for more posts, pass this information along to other alumnae, help make this site a success by commenting and participating in our conversations.
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