Nap Time Rocks!

bah humbug?

driving to work this morning, I was confronted by an inescapable fact that Christmas is just around the corner. I wasn’t reminded by the alternating parols hanging quietly on the lamp posts, nor by the festive invitation of several bazaars and malls to come to their last-minute Christmas sale. I wasn’t prompted by the Christmas songs played every now and then on the radio; in fact I was just a little annoyed that they didn’t play “just regular music”. It wasn’t the glitter and Christmas trees nor the many variations of Santa and his reindeers imprinted on every household décor.

I’m not playing the old scrooge role though. Every year I get older it seems that i would lose a thread of my “Christmas spirit”. I used to get excited 2 weeks before the big event, and would anticipate every trip to the mall for the annual Christmas present shopping. Now, I would dread having to squeeze my way through the militia of bargain-hunting people, even throwing one or two threatening looks to those who would dare invade my personal space (which, by the way, has been limited to a very tiny area).

I was reminded by the people who would annoy me one way or another; those jeepney drivers, in particular, who would cut you and stop in the middle of the road to let passengers get on and off. drivers who might have also lost their sense of giving, and pedestrians who have no concept of stop and go. Even the men in blue — those MMDA guys who seem to have found every corner of the street a comfortable watch post. I watched myself go from happy-go-lucky to road-raging driver. I was close to saying ‘bah, humbug to you too.’

I was reminded because they reflected how I dealt with them. if there’s anything more methodical than Santa Clause this time of the year, then it would be that Christmas is synonymous with love or charity. It’s plastered on all hallmark cards, printed on billboards, and advertised so much on tv. I was not anywhere near obeying that credo when it came to these people. It was so much easier to be nicer to people of value to you, why bother?

But then it isn’t easy for them either. Having nothing for Christmas eve is no comfortable idea, nor faking to celebrate prosperity when we all know that food and gasoline prices are increasing making it so much harder to go by these days. (I would sarcastically wear my seatbelt lately dahil malapit na ang Pasko, kailangan ng pambili ng pang-Noche Buena).

By now you’d expect me to retract and say that ‘tis the season for forgiveness anyway, so what the heck. I’m not changing the way I think about the undisciplined drivers of metro manila, but im resolving to alter my fixed response to negative stimuli. Haha. Which means I will try to avoid hurling profanities and ruin my day by going nuts over people I have mentioned earlier. I would be doing them and myself a favor wouldn’t i?

‘Tis the season for realizing the bad things I’ve done for the past year. ‘Tis the season to change how I live my life, start and end my day. ‘Tis the season to do something nice to other people for a change. ‘Tis the season to eliminate stress in my life and the things that make it stressful. (I wish there were no more jeepneys around. Just kidding.)