my mind wanders... on a thought of a green sunset

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The Few Moments of Christmas Cheer

The Christmas cheer was there. However it somehow lasted for a few moments to the entire 24 hour season of gifts, feasts, and a whole lot of retributions.

Let’s start with December 25 at 12:02 AM.

At last, Christmas came to our home. We had a simple family feast which I dared to cook - vegetables in shrimp and calamari. It tasted pretty good. We had casual peach wine (my favourite - it tastes like juice) in our glasses and had a toast on a celebration worthwhile. I even rushed to open a gift under our small tree and saw a NBA tumbler. It spelled out Minnesota Timberwolves. The fact that I liked it is because of its color - green. Talk about color schemes for Christmas.

Resume December 25 1:00 AM

After the dinner, I went online to greet the YM people a good cheer. For some time, I found out that there are only 3 people online, in which 1 of them is invisible, and I took the Invisible Mode. I greeted all the offline peeps a whole holiday queer. I had some small chitchat with the remaining people online. As some time went by, I fell asleep in front of the PC again. It was late.... Yawn.

Wake up December 25 11:00 AM.

I rubbed my eyes to find out that there are people ringing their voices outside the gate. “Namamasko po!” they screeched. I saw my mom wrapping gifts silently, she was too tired maybe to talk to the people who stepped to our gates and screamed the phrase. My brothers were asleep as usual, I guess they had hang-overs, but I cancelled the thought - who would have a hang-over by drinking 2 beers? I then remembered my brother telling me about his friend who had 2 beers and was already talking to plants. I heaved myself into the sofa, drowsy and droopy, and looked at the time. It was late - we needed to be at Cavite for lunch and the wall clock flashed 11:20.

Then there was this one guy who stepped into the gate and screeched “Tao po!” with radioactive energy. By the tone of his voice, I’d say he was very decided in getting something for Christmas. By the looks of our house that day, the gates were locked, no light was glowing, no electric fans running and all doors closed in - our house looked almost deserted. The silence was always broken though by people coming in to holler their rants for something but backed off because they saw the locked gate and said “Ay, walang tao…” Disappointed people were so obvious.

Not this guy though, he was very decided to get something. I think he got a feeling there were people inside our house. He did not stop screeching and he even got to try the door bell.

My brothers woke up in snooze and in some hint of anger. True, Christmas is the time of giving, but we had given away all we can the day before. Much more, they maybe just returned back to redeem more gifts or some sort.

In some sort of sleepy anger my brother hollered at the guy outside. His anger even rushed in because the guy won’t budge out - he even said “Namamasko po” to my angry brother. The next holler of rage came in as the final blow - the guy went away. Another brother of mine woke up laughing about the whole deal. He even told me the story of a kid shouting “Namamasko po!” and my brother replying “Walang tao rito!” then the kid answered that with “Kuya, ikaw po tao!”

We had brunch - amazingly, because we were hungry by that time, waking up oh-so-early. We needed to be at Cavite for lunch, like I said earlier, but like some flights, there are some hindrances.

Delayed at December 25 3:30 PM

We were all set to go, but there was a problem. How would you fit 6 people (5 of us and a cousin) to a small old (and I mean old, it was already alive when my mom was still young, and she’s 50, so no questions asked) mini-jeep with at least 7 large plastic bags full of gifts to give (my nuclear family to the mother’s side is very large, no doubt) for the impending gift-giving later on. So we had fixed the problem, although our solution was not that perfect - my 2 brothers and my cousin were suffocated by the gift bags. Another brother of mine drove, and my mom and I were in the front seat. Good thing we fit.

Parking at December 25 4:07 PM

My mom needed to go to Festival Mall to complete her gifts for my cousins and uncles and such. My mom was taking this slightly, like there was a lot of time to shop. My mom and I rushed to Shopwise and rode an escalator on the way up. She found some trouble on finding the gifts - whew! She had many choices and but she was fitting it all into a balance. After paying she went to the gift wrapping section for some free wrap-ups for her gifts. We took of the mall in about an hour’s delay.

Travelling at December 25 5:30 PM

The old mini-van was oh-so-fast, and I was counting how many cars passed us by. By the counts of our oh-so-fast travel, I counted 45 four-wheeled vehicles and 3 motorcycles, a total of 48 oh-so-slow vehicles passing our oh-so-fast mini-van.

Coming at last December 25 6:10 PM

We saw my nuclear family all in a jiffy to celebrate. It was a good spirit! The happiness was there. We joined the festivities and helped ourselves into delicious food (I was one of the people who helped prepare the food the day beforehand, so eating what you made multiplied the experience a whole lot more). There were more talks about this and that, so the moment of Christmas flickered.

Giving at December 25 7:45 PM

They commenced the gift-giving. My aunt (the oldest) started giving her expensive gifts to all of the nephews and nieces she had. I don’t know what the girls received, but the boys received genuine leather wallets. Genuine leather? There’s a proof code embossed in the wallet. They were genuine alright.

The giving time went ballistic when they started giving out money. They all cried “We want cash!” But the real chaos happened when my aunt from France gave out her Bonne Annee cards containing what they did not expect - 50 euros. They all brandished their phones. My aunt thought they were calling her in France to thank her, but my sister told everyone that her roaming Globe line was no longer useable for contact, but that did not matter. They were not calling or texting, they were computing. How mean! (However, I was mentally computing it as well, I reached the answer all before they found the answer in their phones.)

There were much fewer gifts and much fewer money, but the spirit was there.

Everyone’s happy, I suppose.

Lying down at December 26, 12:04 AM

In my aunt’s house, we opened the air conditioner in the bedroom and tried to sleep up, but we were so full we could not sleep. We were a bit tired of playing “Eggshell” with my younger cousins, so I was left talking to best friend/cousin. We planned our trip to the mall. We needed some sleep.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Ciao~

my mind fleeted at :3:16 pm ;