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.
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.
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.
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