Christmas and the Prty Girl

Nope that's not a typo in the title. I actually plagiarized part of the title from the special plate on my cousin Carol's car. On the back of the SUV she drives is a Betty Boop plate with blue and pink margins and an inscription which says "Prty grl." I like that plate so much because it gives me the liberty to add two sets of vowels and come up with two different words.
In a span of one week, I had attended three Christmas parties and that is A LOT, given the fact that I am not much of a party person. I expect to be in at least two more within the current week. The first party I went to was a Christmas acoustic night in the church I regularly go to. That was where I learned that it was possible to actually dance to an MYMP song while seated.

A few days later, my GG mates and I had our annual Christmas party. I do not know who came up with the idea for a theme but last year, we all came donning hats. This year, someone decided we should all wear scarves! Okay so I felt a little uncomfortable looking like a flight attendant but that was fine, given the fact that it was a huge departure from my "refugee" image last year.

Days after that, my blockmates in school had our own Christmas party. We motored to the house of our class president (our usual/preferred/default venue) and spent hours thinking of everything except books and digests. Oh heaven!

Later that night, I went home with the sniffles and a sore throat, an early Christmas gift from the smoke-belching jeepneys and buses plowing through Manila's streets. My sister had to give me Virlix which made it very difficult to wake up very early the following morning for my flight back home.
Within three hours of my arrival, I had changed into my worn-out shorts and an even older T-shirt, settled myself in the backseat of our family pickup truck and headed for our hometown two hours away from the city, all while nursing the beginnings of a really bad cough.
I passed by the local church and found a group of children huddled together, singing "Joy to the World," the very same children I had spent part of my last summer with. I then proceeded to my grandparents' home to greet them. As I made my way into the kitchen, I was greeted with a plate of steaming tinanok nga saging (translation needed), my favorite merienda.
Until dusk, I went out of the house to go fishing with my two nieces and, at the same time, transformed myself into early noche buena for swarms of mosquitoes. But not before I took out the bicycle and went out for a relatively long ride to this place near the beach. I love my bike and I love the beach. As a child, I liked to go to this place and pretend I was lost although my grandfather would always manage to find me here and bring me back home. In other times when I'm less insane, I would venture down into the sand and look for small seashells to use for playing "sungka."
On that day, I just stood with my bike on an elevated area overlooking the beach. The sun was behind me and the tide was receding.
In this place, everyday, for me, is Christmas.

Scheduling Spontaneity

My last entry for 2005 was about losing a loved one. Call it coincidence but my first entry for 2006 is still about death. Doomsayers may point their fingers and wag them in front of my eyes, saying it's a bad omen but I choose not to look at it that way. It is nothing to be scared of because all people die, no exceptions...er...a correction is on the way...excluding Enoch and Elijah. When people die, it is a moment of both joy and sorrow when past, present and future all come together and settle on a person's heart much like a snowflake which, eventually, melts and becomes nothing more than a mere memory whose bittersweet sting could still be felt from time to time.. Besides what could be more dramatic than starting the year with an entry on a fusion between exit and entrance, between departing and arriving, between a place we call home and a place meant to be home.

That was what I felt like two nights ago when I received a message from Em. I was reviewing for an upcoming exam when her message came. She said that Kuya Elbert had died on New Year's Day. This actually elicited a rather late response from me. I racked my lethargic brain cells in a desperate bid to jolt them awake, trying to remember who Kuya Elbert was. In almost an instant a face flashed in my mind: a small, rather thin man in his 30s or 40s with slightly dark skin who sported a "semi-kal" haircut (if you could call it that) and usually paired his oversized white collared shirt with a bright smile on his face. I snapped my fingers in excitement. Yes! He was the guy in the Nat Sci laboratory who assisted the profs in the usual experiments like pithing huge frogs for dissection. In my freshman year in college, I saw a lot of him. On our dissection exam, he stood quietly in one corner, chuckling at how our knees wobbled like jelly as we observed one dead frog after another. He later on successfully suppressed his laughter when a classmate of ours let out a horror-movie scream and almost ran to the door when one frog, who wanted to say goodbye to the world with a bang, tried to jump at her with its stomach flapping open like butterfly wings. I remembered him! When I would drop by the lab in between classes to check out the bacteria I was trying to culture, I would seem him through the glass panel on the door, hovering about our test tubes like a bee among flowers. One he brought his son, who was about four, to work where I had a few rounds of tickling with him before I sallied forth into Lit class.

Then the very memories of Kuya Elbert which made me laugh slowly caused my smile to disappear. He was gone, just like that. Em later told me her brother said he died because of complications arising from sleep apnea which a layman would simply label as "bangungot." All sorts of thoughts ran around my head. Did anyone care that he died? I mean, if two years ago most students did not even shrug a shoulder when informed that our old Asian Art teacher had died, how about a lab assistant who usually stood a foot lower than most students? Did anyone ever remember how he could be relied upon to make sure that our ongoing experiments in the lab would always been in the same state as we left them? Did he die happy? Did anyone ever remember he would crack jokes so as to counter the nervousness that filled the air whenever we lined up outside the door before an exam? Did anybody stop to think about his son and how he had now become an orphan? Did anybody regard him not just as a lab assistant but as a friend?

My thoughts slowly drifted to me. Did I ever show Kuya Elbert his gestures were appreciated? Yes. Did I do enough or was it of lack? I thought harder. It may have seemed enough in my opinion but did he look at it in the same way? Was it enough for the trouble we were putting him through, frog legs and all? Come to think of it, I never saw him after graduation or when I finally started with my major.

People like Kuya Elbert have given us a little push when the road gets a little rough and they do so in their own little way. It may seem like a completely simple gesture for others but it meant a lot to us freshmen still reeling from bewilderment. Come to think of it, the world has become like a massive network of feelings with people affecting each other through their actions, much like "Pay It Forward" with more Haley Joel Osments and greater spontaneity. It's like what my favorite Mando-Pop artist Wang Lee Hom wrote upon learning of the suicide of his friend Leslie Cheung, a pillar of the Hong Kong movie industry who starred in Farewell, My Concubine.

"We are all twisted and sick, misunderstood and in pain. Yet we live for those moments of parting clouds and warm smiles.I believe that each encounter with another human being is a chance to create these moments, and am more convinced today than ever, that "breaking the ice" and disarming our fellow human beings of their fears and isolation is the key to letting us live in harmony.We should all be able to be ourselves, and connected at the same time."

In reality, the world is so small and I believe there are no broken links and dead URLs. Leslie Cheung's star status was a vehicle for him to reach out to people. But normal people like us are given that opportunity too - in work, in school, at home, in the grocery store, even while queuing up at the ATM machine. Perhaps if we all think of ourselves as part of a worlwide reality-base telenovela, then we might start believing that things don't just happen. They are meant to happen, just like the everyday sunrise and sunset and the moon going from full to gibbous to half to quarter to crescent to nada. Just like the astronomic schedule Haley's Comet religiously keeps. Just like birds flying South for the winter.

Actually, just like the new year.

2006 in a Nutshell

I did these two entries the week before the New Year but because I was phone line-less, I was not able to post them. Now that I am back in the real world (and devoid of a bike and a crude fishing pole), I can post them here.

This survey came from the blog of Ala Paredes (link is in my sidebar). I came across it when I was browsing her blog last year and I told myself I will answer it by the end of 2006.

What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Hmmm...a lot of things...

1. I had a "job" for about six months although I refused to get paid for whatever "work" I did.
2. I finally had the guts to submit a piece I wrote to a national daily and it actually got published!
3. I finally drove a car in EDSA which, up until about a month ago, was just a figment of my imagination and I lived to tell the tale.
4. I subjected myself to torture in my first year in law school.

Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Hmmm...I promised myself I would be more productive for 2006 and I believe I lived up to the standard I set for myself! I'll make the same resolutions for 2007, including NOT PROCRASTINATING!

Did anyone close to you give birth?
My cousins Cheryl (to Cienna) and Candy (to Joshua).

Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother's sister Lola Pening

What countries did you visit?
China - Hong Kong and Shenzhen

What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
Hmmm...more maturity and I guess, more faith - in God, myself and in other people.

What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 25, 2006, Christmas day! Among the many things I had to deal with, I squashed my toes on that day. People within a 10 meter radius from me would know why!

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Passing all my subjects during the first semester!

What was your biggest failure?
I do not really look at anything as a failure because it sounds so negative. I regard everything as a learning experience. So yeah my thesis problems earlier this year were a learning experience!

Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing serious except for occasional bouts of flu and sore throat here and there.

What was the best thing you bought?
Avalon's 1992 Christmas CD for only P200! YESSSSS!

Whose behavior merited celebration?
My grandfather's! He's a brave baby!

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Jose De Venecia. Sad to say but the man really gets my blood pressure rising.

Where did most of your money go?
Hmmm...books, tithing, CDs, pasalubong and tapsilog.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
A family trip abroad...our first in 10 years! And getting Lea Salonga's autograph addressed to me (thanks to Mini)! Eto kwento ha: I actually got her autograph on a Miss Saigon playbill in the 90s when my dad went to New York. He stood outside in the cold and froze his nose, waiting for her to come out just to get her autograph. Someone borrowed it from me and did not give it back! >:p

What song(s) will always remind you of 2006?
Definitely "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.

Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? -- happier
ii. thinner or fatter? -- same, I guess...or I hope!
iii. richer or poorer? -- hoping I'm richer? :p

What do you wish you'd done more?
Swim, especially in the beach and get really baked to a toast. Play my guitar and relearn playing piano...and I wish I read more books for leisure and painted my fingernails.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Procrastinate and blow my top off thanks to incorrigible jeepney drivers!

How many one-night stands?
I don't stand at night...I lie down and sleep. :p

What was your favorite TV program?
When I still watched TV...Lost and CSI.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don't hate him but I am soooo mad at him and he absolutely knows why.

What was the best book you read?
Sylvia Plath's Ariel

What was your greatest musical discovery?
That I could still play my old piano pieces after more than 10 years!

What did you want and get?
A puppy! And I got two (one towards the beginning of 2006 and the other during the latter part of this year) although the younger one is really, really sick. :( Oh, and Take That reuniting for a new reunion album (harharhar).

What was your favorite film of this year?
I didn't see a lot of films this year but from the ones I did see...toss up between The Chronicles of Narnia and The Inconvenient Truth.

What was the worst film you saw this year?
By a mile, the Colin Farrell movie A New World. Boring to death and no acting required. Colin did nothing but sulk in the movie and anybody who came in contact with him also ended up sulking. And he did not sulk that well either.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
On my 23rd birthday in June, I was in my room, studying. :(

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Aside from almost getting the chance to see Wang Lee Hom in the flesh? Haha! I wish I could have devoted more of my time to teaching children. I did get to do that this year during the summer but I was also committed to other responsibilities, I could not go into teaching during the entire duration of the break.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Still laid back but a bit edgier - ripped jeans, dress shirts, weirder designs and prints. More sneakers and jeans, still love black, saw lots purple, green and orange in my closet, more plaid shirts and turtleneck blouses.

What kept you sane?
The Bible.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Chiz Escudero (*sigh)

What political issue stirred you the most?
Walang kamatayang Con-Ass!!!

Who did you miss?
My Mamang

Who was the best new person you met?
Taylor Hicks? Oh...MET, like for real! Atty. Marvic Leonen.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006:
Everything happens at its perfect schedule. No timing could be more perfect than God's timing.

What was the nicest thing someone told you about yourself:
I guess when my friend of 10 years called me a "fairchild." I had never been called that before and I certainly had never seen myself in that way.

The most touching experience you've had this year?
During the summer, I got a lot of watermelons from a bunch of people who needed to bring them home more than I did. Thank you!

What did you like most about yourself this year?
I think I'm starting to get the hang of the art of multitasking.

What did you hate most about yourself this year?
Hmmm...something Sue calls "trust issues." :p

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Someday you'll know that nature is so
The same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land, on forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning."
(from Vienna Teng's "Lullaby on a Stormy Night")

Was 2006 a good year for you?
95% of the time, yes!

What was your favorite moment of the year?
January 2006 when Tita Val, Tita Nadi, Auntie Lina, Tita Agnes and Tito Steve came over for a visit.

What was your least favorite moment of the year?
Lolo profusely bleeding during the summer and having to rush him to the hospital in the middle of the night during an office party.

Where were you when 2006 began?
In my hometown, playing with sparklers.

Who were you with?
My entire family!

Where will you be when 2006 ends?
Still in the same hometown, will most likely still be playing with sparklers.

Who will you be with when 2006 ends?
Still with my entire family!

Do you have a new year's resolution for 2007?
Work harder, serve more, laugh more, become more of the person God wants me to be.

What was your favorite month of 2006?
December, as always.

What was your favorite record from 2006?
Toss up between "Awake" by Josh Groban and "Some Hearts" by Carrie Underwood.

How many concerts did you see in 2006?
Does the church cantata count? If it does, then one! :)

Did you drink a lot of alchohol in 2006?
No.

Do a lot of drugs in 2005?
None.

You do anything you are ashamed of this year?
Yes, like I always do. :(

How much money did you spend in 2006?
I do not keep track but I know I did not overspend.

What was your proudest moment of 2006?
Watching my eldest niece win her very first declamation contest!

What was your most embarrassing moment of 2006?
Tripping over a muddle of wires on stage in front of lots of people. :p

If you could go back in time to any moment of 2006 and change something, what would it be?
Haha June 28, 2006 at 8 in the morning. I wish I remembered at that moment that not at all law professors are the same! :)

What are your plans for 2007?
I still hope to be in school and serve God in any way I can. I hope to travel to another foreign country (like England or Japan), go back to teaching music to kids during school breaks, FINALLY learn how to cook, make some progress with my guitar playing, write something meaningful...and make a home movie starring my nieces and/or nephews.

How are you different now that the year has ended?
I'm definitely more reflective and more hopeful, a stronger person and more determined than ever. I have learned to let go and not worry about things beyond my control. I've grown closer and closer to my God through the years.

What are your wishes for the new year?
I wish it would be better year for my family and for my friends. I wish my grandparents good health (still have four years to go). I wish to meet more people, make new friends and learn new lessons.

An Imperfectly Perfect Christmas

December 2006, 9:40 PM.

I'm seeing snow in the tropics. It's all over me, even on my computer.

Actually, the "snow" refers to the white clumps of fur floating before my eyes in an almost celestial illusion of one of the most common symbols for Christmas. The clumps of hair belong to my grandparents' dog Sam. He has been rubbing his head on my lap for the past five minutes now, wanting to be petted. I don't know how long I can keep on ignoring him but I sure know that I'll go to sleep smelling a lot like dog tonight.

I'm dead tired, having spent the entire day within one centimeter of a hundred or so screaming children jumping around in empty sacks or wrestling with Monobloc chairs. My t-shirt has gotten a tad bit too big for me, having endured incessant pulling from a bunch of five-year olds asking for an extra helping of candy. And now I realize, after glancing at my sleeve, that I do need to take a bath.

One of the children I get to talk to in an almost regular basis is Baby. Her mother used to be one of our household helpers. I remember playing "luksong tinik" with her on our front yard. One night though, she did not come home and I went to sleep wondering why. The next thing I know my sister and I are watching her lug her bag out of the house after she tells us she has decided to elope with her boyfriend who lives down the street. She later gave birth to twins who are both named Sheila. Baby came after the twins and is older sister to two more younger brothers. She is now 9 years old but looks like she's 5. She loves Sugarfree and "Panday" and can memorize the theme song word for word even if she does not speak Tagalog at all. I usually wake up to her singing...no, bellowing that song from the street across our bedroom window in the unholiest of hours (around 6:30 am). I cover my ears with a pillow but shrug off more feelings of amusement than irritation.
Earlier tonight, she related excitedly to me that even if they did not have anything special for Christmas dinner, she was looking forward to New Year because her mother promised to make spaghetti. It was as if she was saying "My Christmas was not perfect but I'm looking forward to something good for the new year."

A perfect Christmas.

Perhaps when we read those words, we usually conjure thoughts similar to those Purefoods Fiesta Ham commercials on TV - misa de gallo, pealing bells, a parol by the window, beautiful dresses, family members all present, food abounding on the table, gifts piled high and a Christmas tree choked up with lights. Everything is so perfect from the pristine white table cloth to the smiles on people's faces. It makes you wonder what happens when someone accidentally elbows a bottle of wine and spills the red liquid on the table.

By TV commercial standards, my Christmases have never been perfect. As a matter of fact, if it were THAT perfect, I would find the entire thing too Willy-Wonka creepy. For 23 years, my Christmases have been punctuated by a lot of kinks and misses - a hard-to-remove stain on a prized table cloth, the ham getting too overcooked to be palatable, someone getting possessed by the Grinch on the night before Christmas, two people giving each other the cold shoulder in probably the coldest time of the year in my country, a relative having a little too much to drink...I could just go on and on. Someone can always manage to, as my sister puts it, single-handedly ruin Christmas in the blink of an eye.

If we allow it.

I'll say that again. If we allow it.

Our overly commercialized, consumer-driven world has gotten it all wrong. Christmas, they say, is about perfection. They pound it into our brains as if we were bipeds with drumsets for heads. Everything has to be perfect, as perfect as say, Marcia Cross's hair in "Desperate Housewives." Nothing could ever go wrong on Christmas Day.

But if we go back to that very first Christmas more than 2000 years ago when the Messiah was born, perfection was wanting. Mary, His mother, was heavy with child and had to travel to Bethlehem with Joseph. When they got to Bethlehem, there was no available room in an inn for them to rest for the night. How dreadfully inconvenient that must have been! I mean, if waiting in line in a cashier's booth for last minute-Christmas shopping is patience-draining, how much more discovering that there are no available rooms for rent when you're having contractions! Upon giving birth to Jesus, Mary then, as the oft-quoted phrase goes, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him, not on a crib, but on a manger. If my childhood Christmas plays were to be believed, the manger would have been stuffed with hay. As a child, I once roamed the ricefields in search of snails and earthworms and when I eventually got tired, I then laid myself down on a haystack. It was not that comfortable and by the time I got up, I had itchy welts all over my legs and arms.

But that picture of Christmas would always be perfect for us just as the nativity sets up for sale in department stores portray. The perfection comes about because we choose to ignore the imperfections and instead settle on the beautiful point that the Christmas story has to offer - love, pure and unconditional love.

It was love that brought Jesus to the world to eventually die for our sins. It was love from our Father for us, His children, who, unlike Him, are desperately wanting of perfection. It was nothing but love, what real love should be, pure and unconditional.

In the same way that an assortment of elements jump around in spandex and pitchforks to stir our Christmas into a major headache, I say it is as perfect as it is, imperfections and all. After all, like I said, only TV commercials for ham are perfect and they need to be, or else you'll end up buying either the rival brand's ham or, worse, chicken hamonado. But what makes me close my eyes and look beyond the imperfection is love. True, the ones you love always hurt you the most but I love my family too much to dwell on what's wrong with them or to focus on what makes them a disappointment sometimes. I love my family despite the mistakes they make and the times they may squash my heart and my toes into nothingness...in the same way that they still love me when I hurt them with the things I may do or say. That is TRUE love, the kind of love we learn from our Heavenly Father, the kind of love that brought salvation to the world, the kind of love that can make the the imperfect perfect.