The Christmas season, for every Filipino at heart, has now officially started. While you wallow in disbelief that the merry holidays is still four months away, Filipinos, regardless of where they are, officially go on Christmas mode the minute the midnight clock ushers in the first of September.
I really don’t know where or when this whole Christmas in September thing started but we Filipinos take this whole thing seriously. Take a walk around any mall in Manila today and it is most likely that you will be strolling around to the strains of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and seeing window displays of mannequins frolicking in the snow (with shredded Styrofoam as fake snow to boot).
Some people, even start to do the countdown, making sure he counts all 114 days left before Christmas.
It’s a real good mood inducing feeling, I mean, nothing beats feeling good than feeling the yuletide season. With all the negative things thrown at the country, the high rise of prices, floods, storms and Aling Dionisia’s shot to stardom, I guess it does feel relaxing and good to at least have the idea of Christmas just around the corner.
In a few weeks time, people in the office will be raffling off who you’ll be exchanging gifts with at the annual Christmas party—yes, that annual event where you all get drunk, sing cheesy songs on the rented videoke machine and take lots of pictures, which will most likely be posted and tagged like crazy on Facebook.
Before you can even start making the list of who’s who on your gift list, the phenomenon of Christmas baratillos (does anyone still use this word, makes me feel old just saying it), night markets and fairs will be sprouting out all over the country like mushrooms in a forest. It is where you think you will be getting good buys but believe me, at the rates of the rent they are charged, salaries for their salespeople, and other overhead expenses, you actually end up paying for a gift item that is closely priced to their mall counterparts.
And the food, don’t even get me started on the food. As soon as the bonus rolls in, we’re all bound to go ham crazy, quezo de bola mad and fruit cocktail insane. Incidentally, these are the three important players in anyone’s noche buena. If you don’t have any of the three, then you’re noche buena is not noche buena.
Bring out the tree, hang up the decors and the socks, dig up the Jackson Five Christmas album and start singing along to pre-pubescent Michael Jackson’s ‘Give love on Christmas day.’Merry Christmas.
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