The Burden of a "Merry" Christmas

Each year we celebrate Christmas and each year this yuletide season brings us a playground of emotions. And sometimes I ask why a lot find it hard to be happy during this Christmas. Bakit hindi “Merry” ang Christmas ng iba?

Materialism

This season possibly rank as the most festive, highly decorated, symbol infested occasion there is in our calendar. With the endless display of Santa Clause, blinking lights, candy canes, trees, and of course the beautifully wrapped gifts, this season has become such a commercialized event.

And even before we receive our 13th month pay, we’ve plotted already how we’ll (extravagantly) spend them either as gifts for ourselves or for others. Though the kind gesture of giving has been beautifully taught during this time, somehow some of us learned also the value of too much expectation. We get all too frustrated whenever we don’t get the gift we like, or worse we don’t get any at all. We’d somehow manage to carefully list down our Christmas wish list and pray to all the gods that they do materialize somehow.

And have you noticed that theft cases increase during this season? That possibly a lot of them needed to steal just to give the “right” Christmas to their own families?

Family

And speaking of families, and all those thoughts of togetherness, it is during this season that we come to realise the reality that is upon us. That most families are actually somehow “dysfunctional” (pardon the use of word for the lack of a better term, tamad nako mag thesaurus éklat pa eh) - dysfunctional in a sense that most never really get to be “complete”.

Some would have broken families, that during these times we couldn’t help but wish to have time turned back to those happy days. Some would have parents working abroad, a simple greeting on the phone is the only “together” time spent during the yuletide, or if you get to be all techie, web cams have come to much use lately.

And for most in the call center industry, where holidays only get to be in their vocabulary when they’d get a double pay, when Christmas seems to be another normal graveyard shift, families tend to take the bleachers in the game of life. After all, their work brings the food (not the person) in the house. You can never really complain much.

I blame it to those family Christmas posters where the only emotion they give to those who cannot be with their families would be such great longing.

Romance

Second only to Hearts’/ Valentine’s Day, this season seems to ignite the want for people to get “tied up” with someone before the year ends.

Blog titles and even twitter twits would somehow get that familiar phrase “malamig ang pasko.” And I can possibly name 5 songs pertaining to this, like Pasko na Sinta Ko”, and “Miss kita kung Christmas” which starts with “Ang disyembre ko ay malungkot, pagkat miss kita-aah…” (uy, kumanta yan! Dalawa palang yan, kayo na magisip ng iba pa).

Somehow, Christmas was packaged and marketed as a season to be with someone. And people can’t help it if they get that grave feeling of being incomplete being without a partner (or even a date, or two or three) for Christmas.

Weather/ Climate

Ok, so we’ve somehow established that “malamig talaga ang pasko.” And somehow we are luckier that our foreign counterparts where the winter somehow increases the number of depression in people.

If you get all too unlucky, and find yourself alone in this cold winter night, swerte mo nalang kung di ka maglaslas and you’ve got a supply of chocolates to keep your serotonin levels high. Others don’t really fare much with such loneliness.

Though for us, though we don’t have winter, we somehow find ways to appease the cold nights, or for some, caladryl pwede na (bad!).

Unwarranted Events

Some occurrences in our lives leaves us shocked, and they really do not choose any proper or a more convenient day to happen. Like a death in the family, break ups, LQs, family fueds etc.

Of course you cannot tell your Lola, “lola, can you die after New year nalang?” Though boyfriends breaking up with their girlfriends can still be arranged, the time and date can still wait, but still, me mga tanga lang talagang lalake.

But why Oh Why!!!!!
(warning, tatay mode on lecture ahead)

I guess we have somehow forgotten how the original Christmas was celebrated.

It all happened in a manger, not some fancy hotel… laden with hay, not some fluffy bed… shepherds who got off from work to see for themselves the news brought by the angels (who went back to work again and shared the good news thereafter), though yes, there were those gifts from the three wise men (kings?), but still if we see through all of it, it was somehow presented with much poverty, difficulty, and simplicity.

That if we really wanted to find the “merry” in “Merry Christmas” we might need to find what this season is really all about. Definitely not Santa Clause, or the reindeers, or the tree, and didn’t you notice that the only original symbolic object there is today is the star and the manger? No candy canes nor stockings hanging on our chimney stall (naks me chimney).

That happiness does not rest alone on having a partner this Christmas (though pansin ko, lahat humabol at nagka S.O. agad, mga hinayupak!)

Or ham on our table (tapos magtatabaan kayo tapos sisisihin nyo sa pasko, lekat nyo!)

Or expensive gifts to open (tapos irerecycle lang din naman pangregalo sa iba pag di gusto)

That for me, happiness is based on the good news that this season should remind us…

(audience participation naman dyan! Ano nga ba?)

In any case, babati parin ako ng belated na Merry Christmas at Happy New year sa inyong lahat!