a new christmas

christmas is over. i wish i was as happy as i was last year or maybe a couple of years ago. if only gifts were to be my gauge of happiness, then, certainly, im very much less happy this year. i only received one gift and that was from jaymie. the first thing that came to mind when i got home with only that in my hand was that, im old. it's like the whole world's screaming straight to my face that i'm already old enough to be receving gifts from relatives. but wait a minute, gifts aren't only for kids. their meaning go beyond just giving birth to smiles on kids' faces. rather, they're given to tell us that people around you are there remembering you, sharing with you what they have, hence, living up to what christmas is all about. or maybe i'm wrong. perhaps i grew up along with the expectation that christmases always come with some fanciful stuff wrapped in fancy papers. as if the season always has to come as a package.

first there are noels being played on the radio. then groups of people singing them to you. third, your chance to fill up your stomach with the mouth-watering food. fourth, the exchange of gifts, which upon completion of secondary school merely becomes a happy memory of ala-guessing game (for most of us) as you shake and try to find out what's inside it; and is then replaced by just giving gifts to, more often than not, more than just a single person whose name we picked from a bowl of 40 names. fifth, booze overflowing and everyone getting wasted, which by the way i still havent experienced until now. sad. sixth, we wake up to a day halfway through, at lunch time with leftovers from last night's noche buena found on the table. christmas may have meant too much for me. i guess, after another year of numerous events and experiences, things changed. so did the way we view circumstances and interpret things around us. i can view this as a sign of two things: that i am maturing and christmas isn't always the wonderful event we, as children, have always thought it was.

among all the christmases ive seen, this year might have been the most different, relatively the saddest, and the most reassuring. the most different because of: one, almost no gifts (as if all my relatives talked about not giving away gifts to us all except the kids); two, we no longer ate at the same time last night, most of them went ahead; three, games were absent- no more shower of coins which the kids have always found fun participating in as they threw themselves to the floor to selfishly grab every single coin that their eyes can pick up on; four, the girls were just slouching on the couch, killing time by watching the provided dvd of lovers in paris while some of us boys were just sitting on the floor telling stories to each other, from time to time having some laughs.

the saddest because i spent the entire day confined in the four corners of my parents' room either watching tv, dvd or reading a book, going in and out of the room to get something that i can stuff my stomach with. it's like the day has just lined up with the other ordinary days. nothing special. nothing to be excited about anymore. or maybe there's just LESS to be excited about. kitchoy's right. it's for kids. they get all the fun and joys of the season. how good it will be if i were to be a kid again. (and not just being isip-bata. hehe.)

and the most reassuring because this season has reminded me of so many things. most of them ive already mentioned above. im sorta not in the mood anymore to make this any longer. perhaps tomorrow i can elaborate.