Archive for December 2006

Remembering the sounds of Christmas of quite a long time ago.

1. "Merry Christmas, Ma'am, Sir," combined with a special holiday smile, in all places of business & consumption from the taxi to department stores & restaurants, with or without the expectation of a holiday tip, contribute to the holiday ambiance.

2. "Pasko na, Sinta Ko" by Gary Valenciano is playing on the jeepney on your way to work & you don't mind hearing it every year. It's timeless.

3. The tinkling sound of Christmas tunes that goes with the twinkling of colorful Christmas light decorations that you may find in your exterior house decorations, small places of business & even in Aling Tinay's sari-sari store.

4. Television & radio holiday commercials geared to remind us of the holiday spirit may it be by consuming or religious in nature, bring us all together in one spirit of Christmas.

5. The rattling of folded paper in a pencil holder when your officemate or barkada approaches you to pick a name for the monito-monita, an imposed manner to spread the joy.

6. "We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas," together with the jingling of a makeshift tambourine of kiddie carollers made of tin cans & coins who through time complains when you give them 5 pesos for their 2 questionable songs.

7. The clinking toast of beer bottles among friends to all the years of alaskahans, hangovers & everything in between. Even though you never miss a weekend inuman with them, the holidays will always be different.8. The chime of churchbells at 15 to 4am for the Simbang Gabi which also means it's bibingka & puto bumbong, all warm wrapped in banana leaves for breakfast. One of the many Filipino food I am proud of.

9. Your mom's voice telling you to stop watching the Christmas cartoon special on TV & start getting ready for church or telling you to stop eating the Noche Buena food. Whether she's angry or not, her reminders to do this & that will always be a part of the Chrismas Eve preparations.

10. The laughters & the kulitans over your dad's Christmas songs still on vynil records while you eat your family's humble Noche Buena midnight meal. The noise of all these voices at the same time, the sweet chaos of family banter & mockery, will always be your best memory of Christmas.

11. The tearing & crumpling of gift wrappers, the oohs & the ahhhs & even the "what the..." chorus of responses over our Christmas gifts by the tree, will always be one of the most heartwarming family moments.

12. The sound of silence after the midnight Christmas mass, Noche Buena meal, the gift-giving & when everybody has gone to sleep, that sound of bursting happiness & flowing gratitude.

Everybody already had those kind of days. You know that kind when nothing seems to be going right - a series of bad luck that sometimes lasts for a stretch of time & you just sit & wait for the shit to stop falling on your head. In our case, we have a succession of unfortunate car events. Thank goodness it's not anything colliding, just a couple of headscratchers & pickles.

The curse started a few months ago when french fry's car antenna was stolen. Nothing bad, just a hassle to lose radio signal. A few weeks ago, all four of his hub cabs were stolen. Nothing that bad, just that now the all black wheels are so ugly. Our neighbor had all his stolen too in which he concluded that it's hunting season for the all new Clio. Last week, our other car just decided to get stuck in the parking without any prior symptoms at all. In getting in, I accidentally leaned on the steering wheel & locked it but the problem was with the ignition key that won't turn at all. It was like I was using the wrong key & the mechanic told me is something really rare. The thing with cars today is that mechanics cannot tinker with it anymore like they used to - it's all electronic so there's no choice but to pass by the most expensive route to repairing it. We have to have the car towed to the garage, replace the ignition key & reprogram the new car keys & door locks for yes, hundreds of euros. It does not all end there. Two days after the ignition key incident, french fry's car radio got broken due to a centimeter open window under a big rain. This all happened within a month, give or take a week or two. Sometimes it really makes you wonder quand c'est que des merdes (when all shit happens).

Now, we just justify this temporary curse by believeing it could have been worse - which has a high probability of happening - bad luck does not care if you've had too much. I now learned to make a "shit basket," a piggy bank if you will, to ease the eventual pain of our pockets because sometimes it just pours.

Popular Posts

blog archive