By the Way, Christmas is HERE

It’s almost too late when I realized that Christmas Day is just a few days away. I never felt the Yuletide spirit as much as I should. Unlike other people who are deeply stricken by the Christmas bug. For days I found myself stuck in the middle of the road, enough for me to say ‘la circulation est trés mouvaise’ while I frown and connect my eyebrows.

The lowly elements on the street would wait for the red traffic light to flash so that they could start going to every vehicle singing their carols in haste. Most of them are children who have no homes and who have no other option but to beg for alms to survive. At times I consider them as eyesores. Most of the times, they distract motorists. I fear them. I’m afraid that cars and trucks might sweep them off the streets and drag them to their deaths.

I see them as traffic hazards. They tap on your car to ask for coins and in cases that you ran out of loose change or when you don’t want to give them any, they would tap on your car even harder. And you would be scared enough that they would do something to your car. They could easily make scratches on your hood or put something underneath and make your tires go flat. Christmas is the season for beggars.

And then there’s this huge scarcity of parking spaces. It’s so hard to go to the mall at this time of the year and I realized how hard it is to find a space to park ZeeWee. A couple of times, I spent so much time driving in and around the parking lot.  I wasted so much gas and my feet got sores from searching for such space. Which is why I decided to not to go to the malls at this time. And if ever I feel the need to drop by SM or Ayala, I’d go there in the morning on the first hour that stores would open.

Then the malls are filled with flocks of people. I saw people rushing in panic towards malls and grocery stores to buy presents while I stroll at ease, walking from shop to shop, searching for something decent to wear for work. People seem to be in haste to buy anything worth giving to their loved ones. They walk past me in double steps with several shopping bags in each hand. Adults would bring along their kids. I see a lot of children tugging along with their parents. Some of the kids would cry out loud and some would scream in frustration if their moms and dads would not bring them to the fast food joints.

I would understand why people bring kids to the mall. Christmas they say is for the children. If that is the case, why not let these children enjoy the season at home? It’s cumbersome to see them in some capitalist’s temple. And besides, bringing them to the malls would only spark some ‘materialistic itches’ in them. We are to be blamed if these kids would equate Christmas to ‘gift-receiving.’

I always had the hardest time in picking presents for anyone. Be it a gift for my officemates, my partner, family or friend, I view Christmas as a personal ordeal because I couldn’t come up with creative gift suggestion. I always fear that the recepients of my gifts would not like them or they would make some comments that would just dampen my spirit. This is the reason why I do not expect to receive any gift from anyone. I’m quite certain though that in cases when people do give me presents, I personally express my gratitude to them.

And there is this long queue at the cash dispensing machines. The banks usually turn greedy during this season. They usually program the ATMs not to dispense a lot of money and they would schedule the machines to be unavailable for most of the time. It is at Christmas when people would experience shortage of money because their bank’s ATM would go off-line.  I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Banks fear that there would be a huge withdrawal of money from their vaults. But then, these are people’s money and not theirs.

Every Christmas, my mom would go ballistic on the thought that distant relatives would pay us a visit. Our kins on my dad’s side would come either to my dad’s house or at my grandma’s place in droves. She hated the fact that our relatives would fight like vultures on almost everything my dad would give them, be it money or food or used clothing. They would always come around to tell my dad that they spent their last money for traveling from their place to the city. They use the same old style to let dad shell out money for them. The vultures have become more clever each year.

This year, mom wanted to us to go somewhere on Christmas Day. She doesn’t want to stay in the house and do the painful task of accommodating our relatives and their univited guests. My mom wanted to have a different way of spending Christmas with the immediate family. We still are not sure where to go. And Christmas Day is like 2 more days before it comes.

Christmas. Oh Christmas. It causes headache. I might just bang my head on the wall and declare that its the season to be JOLLY. Christmas is no longer at a corner. It has already crashed flat on my face. By the way, Merry Christmas everyone.