The Week After (Post-Holidaze)

After 3 ridiculous months, the Christmas season has finally (depends on who you ask) ended. Thankfully, that means no more difficulty navigating through malls like they're places where a new Guinness World Record is being conducted. No more annoyingly positive and mind-numbingly cheesy Christmas songs and movies. And finally, no more Christmas gift expectations from relatives you see like once a year. (Yeah, I'm a cheapskate)

But before you take me for some kind of Grinch, let me make it clear that I do love the holidays. After all, it also means cheerful re-unions, glorious food everywhere and most importantly, more cash comes into my wallet. It's the BS that comes with the season that I dislike. It's not fun staying in the FX line for 20 minutes on my way home. I can give more examples, but I don't want to whine here. Like all things in the Philippines, this is just one of the things we have to deal with. This is after all, a country ripe with contradictions. So on a scale of things that I love and hate simultaneously, the Christmas season would be between Manny Pacquiao (and his showbiz career) and cheap booze.

Looks expensive, but it definitely doesn't taste like it. Still a great buy, though.

So in light of this post's introduction, I'm making a list of things I've realized both during/after the holiday season's bittersweet conclusion.

It's really just like any other day in this country, except that the usual money grubbing schemes have been turned up to maximum. 

    This means everyone's twice as hysterically happy/sincere while "asking for your generous help." Might be a good thing, but tell that to the carolers with the fake smiles on their faces when you drop upon them the soul-crushing words of "pasensya na po." Boom. GG noobs. Also applies to the kids who enter jeepneys, but this time they're bringing ampaos, and some will even sing you a happy song, despite not looking it. I guess I should feel sorry for them, but I can't really find it in myself to give to someone who's obviously in some child-exploiting syndicate.

It's a really bad time to be a worker in retail shops/malls during this season.

  Have you seen how ridiculous the outfits of these guys are just these past few weeks? Security guards with Santa hats are about as much of an insult to common aesthetic decency as the pink and blue paint job we used to have in the city, courtesy of the MMDA.

It's hard to look tough when you're wearing this

On a positive note, the more uhm, attractive female members of the department store's salespeople look mighty fine. Except for the part when they shout MERRY CHRISTMAS SEEEEER! just 2 feet away from you. And the part when you realize that the amount of makeup they put on seems to be playing a game of who can burn people's eyes more (?) with their outfits. 

Shopping for great food is a freaking quest into Mordor.

   One does not simply walk into Excellente Ham's store during December.

Shopping for clothes isn't a walk in the park either.

   Good luck waiting for your turn at the dressing room. In front of you are people who apparently can't read the sign that says, "only 3 items or less may be brought in."

We've lived off the food we bought for Noche Buena, plus the ones given to us for 5 days.

    Seriously, none of us cooked anything in the 5 days following Christmas Eve. I can still feel the ungodly amount I've ingested from time to time. When do I feel it, you ask? Every time I'm dressing up. I'm slowly returning to a pathetic physical condition.

You realize how much can change in a year.

    Last year I was a graduating student not giving much of a damn where I'm going.  Now, I'm a bored yuppie on the verge of quitting a dull job. It's amazing what a few months out in the real world can do for a person. You realize that the cutthroat people in the office you see in the movies are actually real, and infinitely more ridiculous and unbelievably stupid in real life. Oh and last year, I was the one receiving Christmas cash. This time, I'm the one dishing it out. Bah Humbug. 

You look in horror at the damage you've done not just to your body, but to your bank as well. 

   Well shit, I'm only human. But the best realization I've had through it all is this...

Everything was well worth it. And I can't wait to do it again next year. 

Time to watch the best Christmas movie ever made. F you Macaulay Culkin.