CUTTING THE CRAP

Amidst the difficulties the whole world had faced and will still be facing come New Year, everyone welcomed 2009 with a bang! In fact, everyone was extremely kind and generous! Back home, we even had so much than the usual menu! We also made extra efforts, buying fireworks of different kinds and raw foods to fill the fridge. The usual kids’ party which we held religiously on eves of New Years is also a little big this time, big favors and prices, that is. The events are also well planned; thereby having everything readied a couple of days before the New Year celebration. I can say that this is my first New Year in peace and good mood!

Early today, we have gone to our prairie looking for durable sticks or branches. These we thought are the best foundation for our party favors. We are supposed to hang so many junk foods, fruits, drinks, money, and tokens on it then have our nephews and nieces grab for whatever they want. Noon time, we are done with the task and the thing is already dangling from just below the cantilever of the small patio. Naughty kids are trying to figure out which and how they’ll going to get their ‘baggies’ of candies.

Early afternoon, the kids are bringing the gifts they prepared for the party. We are going to exchange gifts to distinguished partners, which we drawn a week before. This is why they too are prepared for the event. The most important of all is the dance presentation, a thing we decided after Christmas. We have 12 nieces and nephews, which we divided into 3 teams. Only 9 will be here to present as the other 3 will be back home with my brother’s in-laws. At exactly 9pm, we are expecting that the fun will begin!

Some kids from the neighborhood woke me up just in time for the settling dusk of the day before Christmas, and surprisingly, I’m not at all wary! Well, that’s just some of the wonders the season can bring. Im in high spirits, influenced by the coming Christmas day so everyone can just come by and wake me up—and I will not mind! But do that other time, you might wish you hadn’t come to know me—lol—

I think everyone becomes love struck, forgiving, nice, thoughtful, and patience among other good attitudes in the world when Christmas is nearing. I am a living example, am I not? You can even count yourself in; you don’t have to feel ashamed of that. My friends and family usually say, it was better if the pope will declare every day in the Catholic calendar a Christmas. Then everyone will be nice and patient and loving. Whooooaaaaa!!! Although it might have a difference but we are just humans. We feel tired, sad, alone, and restless every time that is why we are sometimes out of line.

If everyday becomes Christmas day, then what makes a difference in a year? There will be no more caroling, gift giving, card sending, and resolutions to be made. So Christmas becomes just like ‘another day’ in a year. Nothing to fuss about, nothing to get excited of, and nothing to make us feel festive on. Is that a good alternative? I think its not!

But what am I chanting at? I think, I am just the one who raised the question and I am the same person who is pissing me with the thought. I guess my mind is getting a little tangled and blurred with all the good light colors and decorations I been seeing these days. What I just really wanna say is that its Christmas and it’s a great good feeling to be at home!

Today, I am going home to pay a two-week holiday vacation with my olds. I got good cash in my account, some in pocket, and a lot of good stuffs to give away! My family will love me! Then, my mind wandered to the battered soldiers in other nations, the overseas workers who were not able to come home this year, and the many other workers in different places who will not be coming this year to celebrate Christmas with their families. I can’t help but wonder if this is how it feels to be away from your family for sometime and be reunited again. I mean, I’m not that far from our place and I actually go home almost twice a month. If this is how excited I feel now, what more those that have been years separated with their families?

But then, I can’t do anything with everyone’s frustrations and situations. Besides, they are also getting the full benefits of being away from home. Nope, that’s not to be taken as negative. What I actually want to say, they are earning bigger money in exchange of what the country can offer. Also, there is the issue of difficulty of employment in the country, so what choice do they have? I am just one of the few that have been blessed with a nice job in this country. I’m not saying its great and really fantastic, what I am saying is that I have a decent job with relatively decent pay; and I really appreciate that.

I just hope that the present status of our company will last for centuries so they can help so many others in the future. With the company build in rock, I can almost hope for decades of tenure. But it’s mind-whacking, too. Well, which job isn’t? For now, I just have to enjoy my vacation, and I also hope that all the workers in the whole wide world will.

Presidents don’t go out of the country and get smacked with — a pair of shoes! That’s before US President George W. Bush Jr. got it. Imagine the President of your nation getting the same! You can’t? Well, yours might be a saint! Look at this video of the most powerful country in the whole wide world and universe, a shame don’t you say?

But the point is: how much anger can you come up with to really have the guts to throw your shoes right in the face of as powerful as US President George W. Bush? I don’t want to go through the same feeling but can you? I think I can still keep my cool even in the present crisis the world is going through with. Besides, I don’t think that a single man even with the same great power as the US of A’s president has can drag the whole world into the economic troubles we are all in now. I’m not a fan, but believe me, we are all in this together. I just happen to believe that we can make the whole wide world great again if we all keep our cool in the midst of what we are going through right at this moment.

In our own office, for example, we are facing our own great depression. Before the end of this year, we don’t know how many will be going home with that dreaded paper that says: you have been very helpful in the company’s success, blah-blah-blah, but you are not required to come to the office starting tomorrow. Whaaaattt???? Ive been in that situation before but God is good I’ve accept it with grace (well, at least I believe I did). So even at the height of whatever dilemma there is or will be, I just hope that I wont come up with my shoes swinging into someone else’s face. Sigh.