The Christmas experience: Up close and deeply personalFrom various parts of the world, eight members and two regular guests of Jose Carillo’s English Forum open up their minds and share with us some of their most intimate thoughts about Christmas. Whether affirming, celebratory, or contrarian, the multifaceted views presented here not only make for interesting reading but also provide us the opportunity to deeply reflect on our thoughts and beliefs about Christendom’s holiest of seasons.PanunuluyanFrom the book Pasko!: The Philippine Christmas by Reynaldo G Alejandro, Marla Y. Chorengel et al.
Published and exclusively distributed by National Bookstore and Anvil Publishing. The words of ChristmasBy Raul S. Gonzalez, Forum member
For several years now, I have used this piece to extend season’s greetings to friends near and far. I see no reason for doing otherwise this season. I wrote it aeons ago in college as an English class assignment. It has since seen print in my column in the Philippine Star,
the defunct Evening Paper
and the Daily Tribune.
MANDALUYONG CITY, Philippines—Christmas disdains big words, shuns fancy sentences, abhors tangled thoughts.
Peruse the words of Christmas and delight in how majestic they sound in their ordinariness: star, angel, shepherds, wise men, good, joy, glory, child, God.
Parse the sentences of Christmas and marvel at how so much elegance can flow from constructions as simple as: “She shall bring forth a son and you shall call him Jesus.” “There is no room in the inn.” “Fear not, for I bring good tidings of great joy.” “You will find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.” “Lo! The star, which they saw in the East, went before them, till it came and stood over where the child was ... and they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”
Ponder the thoughts of Christmas and know that in all history no message can be found as clear and sure; no philosophy as deep and true, as these: Darkness comes but light follows. Nothing is so bad that hope should be abandoned. After primal sin, the promised Redemption. The man with eyes shall be a staff to those who are blind. We are not just our brothers’ keeper, we are our brothers’ brother. Christmas is merry because the Savior is come.
In keeping then with the style—and the spirit—of Christmas, to this Savior this man this Christmas this prayer presents: Keep the earth good and give men peace; and for you, my cherished friend, this wish makes: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year…
For me, Christmas hasn’t been totally corrupted as a holidayBy Isabel Escoda, Forum guest
HONG KONG—One of my favorite stories about the holidays deals with the book
A Year Without “Made in China” by American Sara Bongiorni who, along with her husband, embarked on an interesting project. They decided not to buy, starting before Christmas, any Chinese-made stuff for a whole year. Needless to say, they experienced great difficulties, in this day and age when the world is inundated with Chinese-made goods.
The Bongiornis did this not because they hated China but because they wanted to find out what stuff is still being produced in the US and in countries other than the ubiquitous People’s Republic.
Sara hilariously recounted the lengths to which she had gone to buy items like simple household items easily found in the usual outlets—a new cartridge for her home printer, clothes and toys for her two young children, Christmas decorations (even candy canes are made in China), and various gifts for relatives and friends. She spent inordinate amounts of time online trying to locate badly needed things, even driving to neighboring towns and out of state (she lives in Florida and works as a journalist) to purchase badly needed items. They were able to find things from Japan, Mexico, and the Philippines, among other countries. She had to compromise on the cartridge that her husband brought from his office (though made in China, she could claim not having paid for it—which was cheating a bit).
The couple made it through the year, concluding sadly that the old days are gone when the U.S. produced all manner of goods much coveted by the rest of the world. Which, of course, says much for globalization that has helped other parts of the world, besides China, emerge from abject poverty. Proof of this can read about in
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.
I personally find Christmas these days so corrupted that, like many others, I wonder what this Christian festival would be like if the world had not now become a smaller place ruled by advertising and the media. In Hong Kong, where I’ve lived for many years, the celebration of Christmas and the Western and Chinese New Years are so crassly commercialized it’s almost maddening—but perhaps not as maddening as what goes on in the Philippines with regard to how my compatriots relate to the holiday.
The Chinese have historically believed that creating noise with firecrackers during holidays drives away evil spirits. This is probably still practiced in remote parts of China, and perhaps in the big towns too—mainly to give the natives a bit of relief from the authoritarian Communist strictures. The practice has been controlled in Hong Kong, though some recalcitrants still set off a few explosions in the outlying island of the New Territories where I live.
But none of that is like what I experienced during a visit to Cebu in November this year. The residential area where I stayed with relatives would explode at all hours of day and night—in anticipation of Christmas and New Year’s. And my sister in her Dumaguete suburb tells of how a neighborhood blast went off at dawn last October; when she went over to ask why the peace had been disturbed so early, she was calmly informed that it was to mark “Mama Mary’s” birthday.
Going down memory lane, I recall that for Christmas, some of us kids made our own gifts (booklets of poems, cross-stitched samplers, drawings), something hardly any kid today would even think of doing. The spirit of giving now seems lost in the mad quest for manufactured gifts like plastic and electronic ones that seem such dross. But I can be thankful that I have a teenage granddaughter (who dreams of being the new Barbra Streisand) who sent me a CD of her crooning, and another (who plays drums and guitar) who sent me hers. So, for me, the holidays haven’t been totally corrupted.
My third Christmas in my third lifeBy Miss Mae, Forum member
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates—This season is my third Christmas in my third life.
I should be merry. Not everyone is given another try; more so, a third try.
But then, not everyone can’t walk. Not everyone can’t eat properly. Not everyone can’t remember things.
Not everyone can’t do what he or she likes most (which is writing, in my case). Not everyone can’t keep a loved one. Not everyone can’t be who I am for three Christmases now.
I had a brain operation two weeks before my grade school graduation. It’s AVM, the doctors said. I also read the terms “hydrocephalus” and “aneurysm” in the medical report. They both mean the same thing to me, though: a year away from school, a year away from my plans and future.
High school came and college passed. I was accepted in a local newspaper in a foreign land. I was preparing for an art exhibition when my forehead ached. The pain was like and unlike what had I felt before. It was excruciating, all right, but it wasn’t in my right ear.
I was still able to call a friend who is a physiotherapist. I was still able to dress up and drag my feet downstairs. I was still able to climb onto a hospital bed and bid those around me to take care of my mother whatever happens.
So what happened before had recurred. It took me almost two months to realize that. So I was given another chance. I just cannot do anything much to consume that. So I have the rest of my third life to deal with. There’s just nothing much left for me.
I suppose we would celebrate this season like we have been doing before: with friends, with gifts, with food. Our guests would wish me well again. I, after all, still couldn’t walk. I, after all, still couldn’t move properly. I, after all, still rely on other people’s mercy.
I just still try. I know what I must do anyway. At the prime of my life, I just don’t find starting from scratch again—and again—a Christmas gift. Only when I finally can could it be one.
How could I forget Christmas?By Tonybau, Forum member
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—How could I forget Christmas?
Flashback to the times when we kids had no understanding of what the season signified.
This was always the time when those well-worn, screwed on, paint-chipped incandescent Santa Claus bulbs would light up our old house's porch as well as the Christmas tree. LEDs were not even in the far imaginings of scientists. Fascinated by those non-blinking lights, I stared at them for the longest time, wondering how they lit up and wondering when Santa would come to bring my gifts and park them beneath our tree, for he had lots of trees to attend to.
It was the time to sing carols with my peers. It mattered not if we mangled the words of a song or mouthed what seemed to be the appropriate lyrics if we didn’t know them. There was safety in numbers, after all.
“Empre empre emproom. Empre empre emproom. And heaven and nature sing...” you know that, don't you?
It was the time when closed gates were no deterrent to us diminutive carollers. By sheer determination, we would end up on a reluctant host’s porch, belting out our favorite Christmas medleys for each home we perceived to have something more promising to give than the last one. Scrooges, beware! If you were one, improvised songs would deride you as we hurriedly left, among them,
“Balay a potot, Balay ti naimot!”--the last phrase meaning a scrooge’s house.
Carolling was our early introduction to economics. We had older guys who knew how to count money because, out there, waiting for us, were cash, and candies. It was the season to be jolly! The cash would be equally split up among all who joined, in the wee hours of the morning. No matter the hoarseness from trying to impress the hosts with our perceived angelic voices, in the cold, the end goal was how much our shares would be from the loot, if you want to call it that. The candies were savored in between houses. We’d save some, too, to show off to friends who didn’t join us those nights, to make them drool as we recalled the night’s fun.
We raced against other groups who had similar intentions of making the season a noisy, but profitable one. We lit up firecrackers as we went. Who cared about giving? We were out to enjoy ourselves. Christmas eve--the last night for carolling was followed by a simple
noche buena at home. Bleary-eyed and exhausted the day after, each one of us would be engrossed with our own families, our gifts and our “loot.”
My second name is Emmanuel. My birthday falls on...you got it right! Christmas day!
How could I forget Christmas?
The season's greetings to all!
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