Twas the Season

Okay - do me a favour and pretend that you are reading this a month ago!!! That is when I wrote it (and intended to add more to it then!) but never finished it. So am just going to post it now, as is, for your reading pleasure. Because - I did go to the effort of writing it, didn't I?!

For those not in Melbourne, I have just returned to Manila after three weeks back there (two of vacation and one of work at WVA HQ). I will write more about that later (I hope!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone...

If there were to be a worldwide vote, I would have to nominate the Philippines as the country with the most Christmas spirit. When I lived in the States, I thought they went mad with the Christmas decorations (and I still don’t think there is much man-made stuff more pretty than a New England town decking the halls, with old-fashioned street lamps, town squares with enormous trees and houses with those hanging icicle lights). Every country I have had the fortune to spend the Christmas season has made an impression with its individuality – I remember going real carol by candle-ighting in England, wandering in the snow through our village from house to house, and farm house to farm house, holding torches or candles and being welcomed into each house for cookies or apple cider – I felt like I was in a Jane Austen novel (well – I did when I was older and looked back on the time – I didn’t read much Jane at age nine!). I loved Sweden, with the Lucia’s (I think that is what they are called) – triangular holders of light – in each window of every apartment building and house and office block – too gorgeous for words (especially when the sun sets about 3.00p.m.!!) and even Egypt last year, with its almost total ignorance of Christmas and lack of decorations (perhaps, due to being a predominantly Muslim country, you think?) made an impression (I mean – I was the closest I had ever been to the actual source of the event, and saw a church built at the site where Jesus, Mary and Joseph are supposed to have stayed when in exile in Egypt).


Still – no country gets into Christmas like the Philippines. The radios started playing Christmas messages in July and apparently, once the ‘-ber’ months (September, October etc) begin, it is open season. I heard a Tagalog version of Frosty the Snowman (now – if ever a song didn’t need to be translated to Tagalog, I think it is Frosty the Snowman! Reminded me of having “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas” playing in a restaurant in Malawi (a country in southern Africa, for those of you who don’t know!) when it was about 50 degrees…hee) playing in Megamall in September. Starbucks has a Christmas line of something, with the tag line “it only happens once a year.” Well yes – it does only happen once a year, but here in the Philippines, that is like saying winter only happens once a year. It may do, but it is a three month even with a long build up that requires planning, sustenance and a battle plan to get through.


And the decorations – boy oh boy. Filipinos love kitsch at the best of times – plastic ornaments and fake flowers are beloved of the land. But when it comes the Christmas decorations, they definitely adhere to the more is more rule of design. There are lights of all colours, there are reindeer and Santas, there are trees everywhere you can imagine (and it all goes up at the start of November). The internal sound system in our office building (plays in the hallways and the lifts etc) has been piping Christmas Carols since November. There are plastic lantern-thingies having from every streetlight – enormous Christmas trees that are decorated with the goal of not actually allowing any of the green of the tree to show through. And things I have never seen on a Christmas tree before – flowers, ribbons and bows, bizarre food type things…


There are also an abundance of Christmas parties- I think I have accepted seven or eight of the eleven or twelve invitations I received – I just couldn’t fit everything in and prepare to go home as well. We just had our work one – complete with a sermon (before they fed us – which I think is just MEAN!) and SIX games – they still love their games here. Still, I won a prize for best outfit (had to wear green, red or gold – I had all three in a green skirt, red top, green ribbon and red and gold shoes – sounds hideous when I list it all, doesn’t it – like something Kath or Kim would wear) and an iron in the raffle (I kid you not – I think I will donate it to Nat’s new business at Smokey Mountain, where some ladies are making and selling skirts – currently Nat irons them for the ladies!!)

We also had a Kris Kringle, which was unlike any Kris Kringle I have ever seen, in that it had chart done up for it, with each of our names on it, we wrote what we wanted and then our Secret Santa bought it for us!!! Kinda took the fun out of it a little… It was hard too – only a few people had written things and the rest of us were stuck (there was a P300 or AUD$7.50 price limit) until one person wrote down “Powerbooks Gift Voucher” and so I copied her and wrote down ‘bookshop gift voucher’ and before you knew it – probably two-thirds of the staff have written down ‘gift voucher’!!! Not very exciting to open, but easy to wrap!


We also had a lovely Cocktail party (sans the cocktails – not happy about that one…) for Sagric, with many of the Youth Ambassadors (all the Manila ones, plus a few out-of-towners who were lured, possibly by the promise of the non-materialising cocktails?) that was a lot of fun and a chance to see Lynette, Lalay, Bob and Judi again before Christmas.


All in all, however, I think that despite being a massive Christmas junkie, I might be a bit over it by the time it actually rolls around…

(upon rereading this, in January - it looks a little like a travelogue. I hope you will understand that this was not my intention!)