A CHRISTMAS RAMBLING

“Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas?
You know… the birth of Santa.”
Bart Simpson

Like most of the people, I was in and out of malls these past few days. No, I wasn’t Christmas shopping, I was only accompanying my sisters and other relatives and friends shop for gifts and clothes. I was in only for the free chow and the opportunity to bond with my nephews and nieces. My sisters and cousins love to eat in good restaurants. I, too, love fine dining. I always have mine in McDo.

All the malls we went to were teeming with people. It is of course during Christmas that most people become allergic to money, some of them will buy anything with a price tag on it as long as it won’t bite and eat them. I saw a burly, bemoustached, tattoed man trying a pink dress. I also saw this seventy year old woman entering a store that sold bikinis and a ten year old girl going inside a gun store unaccompanied. There’s oughta be a law that prohibits little girls from purchasing a gun. They shouldn’t be allowed to carry a gun even if it’s licensed. I know that there’s already a law that forbids women aged 60 and above from prancing in the beach in a bikini so we should not worry about the septuagenarian who just bought three pairs of string bikinis.

We were in a restaurant and I saw a family left the place with barely-touched food and drinks on their table. What’s it with Christmas that makes people seemingly antagonistic towards money? What is it with Christmas that makes even the hardcore atheists celebrate it with so much gusto? There’s nothing in the Bible that says Jesus threw lavish parties and asked for gifts whenever he celebrated his birthday. So who are our role models when it comes to the ways we celebrate Christmas?

Okay, it’s Santa Claus’ and the capitalists’ fault. They have successfully brainwashed the people and convinced them that you can’t celebrate our Lord’s birthday without spending lots of dough and buying lots of gifts. Do you want to attend Jesus’ birthday? Then you should be reminded that there’s a dress code, everyone’s clothes should be brand new and expensive. And everyone should bring a gift. I won’t be surprised if one of these days, a billboard showing Jesus clad in signature clothes would appear in EDSA, holding shopping bags with a halo in His head, exhorting people to spend and spend to show their love for Him.

It is also during Christmas that beggars start to abound in the streets. An average of fifteen street kids, I think, knock on my sister’s car windows in our every trip to a mall. I always give alms but I always hesitate giving alms to street kids who dash across the streets in search of it, unmindful of speeding cars around them. I would rather that they are safe than be five-peso richer courtesy of me. A beggar will only move my wallet when he or she has a safe corner of his own. A guitar and a voice sounding like Renz Verano often help to convince me to hand out a bigger amount.

Christmas is about gift-giving so as early as July, I have set my sight on the gift I would give myself. It’s a bicycle that’s five digits worth. My old cheap bike is already a piece of junk and it has been planning to murder me. I will never forget that day it lost its brakes while I was speeding in a busy Binondo street. Of course, like all my other plans that needed money, my plan to give myself that gift went pfft. Maybe next time I should set my eyes on something cheaper, like a box of colored underwears.

My sister, while we were still in a mall and Christmas songs were blaring from every corner, asked me to burn her a Christmas CD. “’Yong magaganda. ‘Yong local saka imported. Ano ba pinakamagandang christmas songs na tagalog at imported?” she asked me. I am the family’s self-appointed expert when it comes to music and movies.

“Pinakamagandang christmas song? Puwera standards, sa imported , ‘yong kay John Lennon siyempre, Happy Christmas(War Is Over). At sa local, ‘yong Miss Kita Kung Christmas, ‘yong sa original singer, hindi ‘yong cover versions lang, ramdam mo talaga ang pasko sa mga kantang ‘yon.”

“Sige, isama mo ‘yong dalawa na ‘yon. ‘Yong magaganda pillin mo, ha? ‘Yong mga contemporary,” she told me. Early this morning, she called me up on the phone and she was asking me to instead burn her a CD containing all the Chipmunks Christmas songs. And yes, the CD will still include Happy Christmas and Miss Kita Kung Christmas. It turned out that one of the stores she entered while we were mall-hopping played Chipmunks Christmas songs and it reminded her how good and cheerful Chipmunks songs were.

“E, sa movies, ano ba magandang pang-Xmas?” “another pertinent question my dear sister hurled at me.

“Christmas movies? Die Hard 1 and 2,” I said.

My sister’s eyebrow raised but did not say anything. But I was serious with that answer. Maybe she was thinking about movies that would lift her spirits up and envelope with her genuine Christmas mood. Hey, Die Hard movies always lift my spirits up. Home Alone 1 & 2 and The Nightmare Before Christmas are great Christmas films, too.

When I was a child, Christmas did not excite me. Maybe because I had stingy ninongs and ninangs. I’m just kidding, of course. (Some of them are still alive. He he) I always dreaded the moment when my parents would drag me to my godparents’ houses to ask for gifts, some of them would even ask me and the other kids to sing before being handed the dole-outs. Some of them would even take a Simon Cowell-stance and criticize us. “You sing horribly!”

Oh, yeah, your gift’s horrible, too!

I was more excited with the New Year because of the firecrackers and the fireworks.

Some people are excited with Christmas because of the parties. The last Xmas party I was able to attend, I think was when I was still in high school. And it was a very long time ago, I remember, the hot topic then was the recent bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Merry Christmas. I hope Santa is true because I have been good throughtout the year. I deserve a gift from him. And I don’t want colored underwears, I can buy it myself, I’ll start saving for it right now.

"Eeew! I saw Santa french-kissing Rudolph!"