Christmas 2006 Post

When I see two trunks of banana trees with real fat bananas ripening on the tree tied on both sides of our doorway, I know it is Christmas. That was our Christmas tree. The bananas were so fat it was splitting the skin. We picked and ate anytime we want one; that was how my dad celebrated Christmas when we were growing up. No Christmas dinner or dressing up for church and definitely no gifts. We had one rich relative who would come and give us a calendar and t-shirts advertising his business.

The rich probably celebrated Christmas but I would not know because I did not have any rich friends. I was 24 years old the first time I received a Christmas gift for myself and for myself alone. It was from the wife of my boss; they are Americans. When she handed it to me, I unwrapped it right away, and she told me, I was supposed to put it under the Christmas tree and wait til Christmas to open it. But we didn't have one.

As the years progressed and my families mindset improved, my sister started making a Christmas tree made out of tree limbs covered with some white soap bubbled to look like snow. Then she would put empty boxes wrapped in red and green japanese paper under it. That was the only improvement in our Christmas celebration. Of course we did not open the boxes because there was nothing in it. I did not question the snow, considering that the only snow the Philippines ever saw is on tv. We did not feel depressed in December because we did not expect any gift from anyone. And we did not feel tired in January and the rest of the year trying to pay for the gifts we were forced to give and could not afford.

Fast forward to now. We have big things and we don't sleep well at night. I live in America, and Americans are "freedom loving people" but I am so polarized I have lost my freedom trying to be free. Free from sarcasm. One group says we should boycott any store that does not mention Christ-mas in their greetings. Another group says, it does not matter -as long as we get a day off for the "holidays." I like both ideas but I have 2 equally precious friends who's polarizing me. I tell them it's not Christs' birthday we are celebrating anyway but rather a celebration of pagan origin. It is the merchants who entices us to buy.., not Christ. Christ wants us to celebrate everyday. How do we do that? By being Christlike. And I have yet to see one around this time of year. If you don't believe me, try cutting in front of a shopper who's eyeing the last X Box on sale.

I hate Christmas because it creates too much traffic. Christmas brings on a lot of depression. It brings out the best in people and also the worst in people. At work, this is the time we gather around cookies and flavored popcorns and talk about our bosses. We talk about our bosses everyday, but Christmas brings on the biggest complainer in us. What do you mean 100 dollars? Dave gave us 200 plus fruit cake. (Dave was the boss 10 years ago, and we compared him then to the boss before him too.) And when we ran out of complaints towards our bosses, we start complaining about the gift from our men. Which leads to pondering ...he does not care as much anymore.
A coworker walks in to work after Christmas grinning ear to ear and prods.."So what did Santa gave you?" Those with stable marriages have no problem giving the details. Those of us who are alone pretends to be ok with it and lies about imaginary gifts we received and imaginary things we did with family and friends..(it is a lie of course but we told this lie over and over in this Christmas season, that we started to believe it is true.) And some of us just pretends to be sarcastic about Christmas and say we don't like it, when in fact we love it, but hate the fact that we have no one special to spend it with.

So before I get so sarcastic here, let me stop so I can drive over to a friends house. My friend is trying to reach out, " Do you think you can stop by and visit for a while?" The depressed voice on the other line could as well be mine and it is only 10 days before Christmas.