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
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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.
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.
Belma thanks, I love your comparison!
ReplyDeleteChristmas is very nostalgic for me. Living in the US for over 40 years I still reminisce every year how Christmas was in the Philippines.
I remember drawing the four candles in our classroom blackboard representing each week before December 25th, Christ's birth. I remember all the elaborate nativity scenes we displayed at each of our homes and the farols (parols). Of course we all know it represents the star of Bethlehem.
I remember my aunt coming to visit weeks before Christmas and like an assembly line would build the farols from bamboo and tissue paper. I remember that she used to use cornstarch for glue. I know; I helped. I always loved this time.
How beautiful all these farols were; all lit up and strung on the eaves of our homes and in the neighborhoods. Some were so beautifully made, definite works of art and exquisite craftsmanship. Today farols have evolved to beautiful kaleidoscopes of colored capiz shells.
Christmas is also about family to me. My Mom's Godchildren would come to visit (she had quite a few). They came bearing gifts, mostly food! Cousins, uncles and aunts came too.
I remember the Chinese ham we always used to have. And all the specialties that the family cooks and bakers put their hearts and sweat into.
Christmas is about Simbang Gabi and the vendors selling Puto Bumbong in the wee hours of the morning. I remember the smells, the sounds: The sounds of the carolers with their makeshift instruments. "Ang Pasko ay sumapit..."
Mostly for me Christmas is about love. I miss being in the Philippines at Christmas.
New Year’s Eve is crazy in the Philippines. I brought one of my American friends to the Philippines and she could not believe it. She was at awe of the fireworks, yes, specifically the fireworks. She has never seen so many.
We were in Baguio at the public market, so crowded, body next to body. Fireworks stands lined the streets.
Then that night the sky lit up!
I loved blasting them as a kid. I am lucky I didn't blow a finger off. I remember driving to my sister's house in Antipolo at about 1:00 am and Manila looked like it had been bombed.
But yes, those resolutions! Oh my. I am certainly guilty of breaking them. My advice is don't wait until New Years to make a resolution. Make one often, but make sure you aren't too ambitious. If you are you may be setting yourself up for failure.
Maligayang Pasko and Manigong Bagong Taon!!!