Rescuing Christmas

I’m beginning to suspect that there is a “Grinch” stalking me every time Christmas season comes around. For three years running, I’ve found “unexpected events” popping out of nowhere and simply putting a damper on what I always planned would be a genuine observation of Christmas tradition. 

One year, it was Typhoon Sendong that made it almost impossible, if not unbearable, to be full of Christmas cheer while watching news coverage of the devastating floods in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan. The following year, my wife and daughter had to go on “home leave” and visit their side of the family in the Netherlands. Because of the prohibitive cost of the tickets, we all agreed that it would be their Christmas present, while I made the supreme sacrifice of staying behind albeit to have a few weeks of unsupervised and unregulated consumption of genuine Filipino food. I actually lost out on that deal since most of my Pinoy relatives are all past mid-life and have to watch their blood pressure, their sugar and cholesterol.

This year, I had resolved to bring out all the parols, make styrofor cut outs of the nativity scene, and “deck the halls” but not with holly, just the usual garish glittery stuff we buy at the malls along with strands and strands of Christmas lights. I was even going to bring out my “brand new” one-year-old Karaoke system that never saw action in 2013!

But the Grinch came to town yet again and this time he brought the perfect storm: Yolanda! If you ever made it to the Visayas or Tacloban to help, Typhoon Yolanda will probably affect you in only two ways: You will scrap all forms of celebration as many companies have done, or you will move heaven and earth to make this one the most meaningful because that was the lesson from Yolanda: appreciate life and family.

To be totally honest, it takes a lot of effort on my part to work up the interest to celebrate a season that has become more of crass commercialization and a vicious cycle of imposed or burdensome gift giving. (Ok so I must be part Grinch after all…..) But then again today’s version or notion of how to celebrate Christmas is an utter departure from Christmases past.

No, we did not start Christmas in September. All that is the handiwork of overly competitive and slightly demented disc jockeys (who technically no longer exist because they really don’t use “discs”). What started out as someone’s idea of a joke in being the first and the earliest to play a Christmas carol on air was simply grabbed by some shameless marketing man representing the associations and chains of malls and stores. The early Christmas carols work perfectly well into the conspiracy of pre-Christmas promotions that start off with “SALE” that are really not “SALE,” followed by Christmas carols in September, a barrage of hype about 13th month pay or bonuses, Kris Kringle games all revolving around gift giving and whose origin most of us cannot even explain, and finally a series of mini “Christmas” concerts all designed to draw us to the malls like lemmings!

The fact of the matter is, as early as the 1960s, a respected Harvard mathematician and lecturer studied the matter, labeled it a pure Americana and composed a rather amusing song about it all. His name is Tom Lehrer and my Christmas gift to you all is introducing you to his wit and creativity. Just look him up on YouTube (http://bit.ly/1cOADo2) and I’m sure you will find his song entertaining and enlightening. Here is a sample of his Christmas carol medley:

Christmas time is here, by golly,

Disapproval would be folly,

Deck the halls with hunks of holly,

Fill the cup and don’t say “when.”

Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,

Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens,

Even though the prospect sickens,

Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas Day you can’t get sore,

Your fellow man you must adore,

There’s time to rob him all the more

The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense’ll

Send some useless old utensil,

Or a matching pen and pencil.

“Just the thing I need! How nice!”

It doesn’t matter how sincere it

Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,

Sentiment will not endear it,

What’s important is the price.

Hark the Herald Tribune sings,

Advertising wondrous things.

God rest ye merry, merchants,

May you make the Yuletide pay.

Angels we have heard on high

Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,

Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,

Driving his reindeer across the sky.

Don’t stand underneath when they fly by.

(Actually I did rather well myself, this last Christmas. The nicest present I received was a gift certificate “good at any hospital for a lobotomy.” Rather thoughtful.)

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Before you write me off as a certifiable Grinch, I will confess that I managed to rescue parts of my Christmas past. I managed to reconstruct my five-foot parols and dress them up with an eclectic touch. My wife says that they are proof of an Elf gone wild and if you want proof, you can check out my FB page (www.Facebook.com/citobeltran) ! I finally hooked up our simple sound system and played Christmas carols on Christmas week. And in the coming days we hope to spend time with friends and family whom we haven’t seen in quite a while. More importantly I reflected on what really happened on “Christmas Day” outside the traditional religious explanations. As far as gift giving goes, God gave us a gift we couldn’t get for ourselves or do for ourselves; the “Maggi” gave gifts to a simple family holed up in a manger. That’s the spirit of Christmas to me, to give “gifts” to those who can’t. 

Merry Christmas to all!