STARTING tomorrow, commuting through traffic-jammed and flooded streets will be a little more bearable, because the radio stations will start playing Christmas songs. The television news stories on the war on drugs, the war on the poor, and the war on truth and sanity will be a little less stressful, because the anchors will end their newscasts with countdowns to Christmas, complete with poinsettia graphics and tintinnabulating tingalingaling background music. The Ber months are here! It all seems absurd, but in our desperation to figure on the world stage, it’s not enough to have the world’s best beaches or world-beating hip-hop dance crews. We have to have the world’s longest Christmas season.
Why not go all the way and, like the songs say, make every day Christmas day? Celebrate all year round! Then, no country can ever steal the World’s Longest Christmas title from us, right? Ah, well, it might be difficult to prove to Santa that we’re nice if there are no months when we can be naughty. And how do we justify our craving for bibingka and puto bumbong if we can eat it all year round? Besides, it just doesn’t feel right to sing about sleigh bells and silent nights while you’re sweating out a summer. So, I guess we should stick to our traditions and keep September to December (and a little of January) as our holiday season.
Businessmen might say they’re too busy to think about Christmas this early because it’s their budget season, but what is budget season if not Christmas in corporate disguise? Everybody makes long lists of the things they want—projects, programs, more staff, new equipment, trips abroad and bonuses—then they send the lists to the top of the world. There, the earnest little elves in finance work on the budget requests day and night without respite because they know everyone is counting on them.
Finally, the Big Guy, who rides the coolest vehicle ever, decides who gets what on the basis of their performance over the past year. Wrap it up any way you like. Christmas is here.
Since there’s no avoiding it, might as well get into it. The earlier, the better. Especially for those involved in choosing Christmas corporate giveaways because everybody tends to order the same thing at the same time. What will it be this year? Power banks are so last year. USB drives are so precloud. Jackets are so Willie Revillame. Maybe it’s time to go back to giving away umbrellas.
Let’s just make sure to stay away from those Christmas cards that say a donation was made in so-and-so’s name to this-and-that foundation by us (so we get the credit).
Yes, it’s the thought that counts, charity begins at our home foundation and the great Michael Jackson did say, “Give love on Christmas Day.” But I think if the people we give gifts to could be totally honest with us, they’d say they prefer umbrellas.
The other thing to start preparing for as early as now is the Christmas party presentation. Otherwise, you may end up walking awkwardly around the stage with a cape and fake ruffled sleeves to the tune of some best-forgotten disco number all for the sake of showing Christmas spirit.
Or somebody will put you in a Santa Claus suit and tell you to mouth the words “watermelon-watermelon” while everybody else sings. These horribly embarrassing things can actually happen. Don’t ask me how I know. The point is every department and every management team will be required to get up onstage and present something. Others will make a career of it. You need to “career” it, too. Find out what the insanely popular dance is—this year’s “Gangnam Style,” “Macarena” or “Spaghetti Pababa”—and master it. Since you’re going to look ridiculous anyway, be excellently ridiculous. This is why the Christmas season has to start in September.
The long Christmas season also gives us a chance to slowly practice drinking and build a tolerance to alcohol. Start with a few beer and sisig nights each week. Throw in a wine-and-cheese evening here and there. Then build up to serious cognac and single malts. By December 1st you need to be able to party like you don’t have a liver. What you don’t want to happen is have a line of women from the marketing department give you tequila shots until you get so drunk that you throw up in public and your boss has to drive you home in your car. You will never live it down. Again, don’t ask how I know this.
At this point, since I know that at least one Catholic priest reads this column, I feel compelled to say the Christmas season is not all about Christmas carols and countdowns, and that the real Christmas spirit is not in material gifts and drinking parties. The true meaning of Christmas is…something I am woefully unqualified to write about. Fortunately, we have four months to think about it. In the meantime, while we’re figuring things out, let’s keep it simple: Be good, be happy, make others happy, too.
Merry Christmas!