Mamingaw nga Pasko!

Are Christmas eves getting gloomier each year?

I can remember our first Christmas here in Manila it was merry. There were plenty of fireworks around. New Year was merrier though, as expected.

This year’s Christmas was so dull that we only saw a few “kwitis” being lighted. Even Makati City only had a 3-minute fireworks display. Are people reserving the merry making for New Year’s eve or are budgets just too tight to waste them for temporary happiness?

For us, Christmas was just like those of the previous years. It’s been quite sometime that we had been spending the season on our own. Manileños have their traditional exchanging of gifts with their relatives and friends. We never had that tradition way back in the province. (Maybe because our neighborhood couldn’t afford it). The good side of it is, you will be getting plenty of gifts. The bad side of it is, you will be spending so much for gifts too because you will be shamed if you don’t give in return. Well, it happens just once a year but I hope in the future they will change that tradition and instead they will be buying and giving the gifts to those whom they do not expect to hand them something back – to the least fortunate. Haaay! What a bright world it would be!

I pity my father. He said he’s having the loneliest Christmas in his entire life – in the US! I can just imagine. If Christmas in the Philippines is dull, what more can we expect for Christmas in the US. As another Filipino in the states said, “it’s like todos los santos”. Papa said he never heard even just a single “putok”. What a pity!

On Tardiness

It’s sad to note that I won’t be receiving a full performance bonus this month because of my ‘recent’ habitual tardiness and absenteeism. It just started with a 30-minute late and the whole month’s stats for attendance is already on the track to being doomed. At least now I am not dependent on it to get the best shift. That’s the privilege of being a special queue agent. Aha! So this means that my good schedule adherence for the past months was with a purpose? Of course, yes! Well, no. My absences were really reasonable. First I was really sick. Second, I was also sick. Hahaha! Nope, the second one was caused by my worthless yaya.

Now, it seems that I am branded as the ‘call in’ girl that I have to carry the remorse in my dreams. While sleeping this afternoon, I dreamt that I was getting late for work and it worries me a lot because I have kept my word not to be absent again. Gosh, it really hit me hard. I hope I will not more reasons to be absent this month. I can only hope.