Peter has been enjoying his state of blissful unemployment for over a month now. He's been boating, skin diving, island hopping, chillaxing, and basically doing nothing but sleep, eat, make love and vegetate. Oh, he helps out with the house chores too! This means, he seldom experiences traffic and the usual Christmas hoolabaloo. Me, I've been enjoying that state for three years now. I just feel lucky to have retired early and just enjoy life traveling, doing some personal projects, and what-nots.
Anyway, the point is, Christmas and the stress it brings to many people (aside from the usual good tidings they say it also gives) is our least favorite season of the year. It used to be my top three, after Halloween and summer, but now, I'd rather have the rainy season than Christmas. Plus, Peter never really liked it. It depresses the hell out of him. Come to think of it, it used to depress me a lot too, even as a child.
So anyway, we said to ourselves that perhaps, it's time to practice what's really in our hearts, which is, to not practice Christmas. True enough, the whole universe conspired for us to get what we want. I became so busy with other more important things that I didn't have the time to set up our usual Christmas decors. Peter was too lazy and resistant to do it too. So after 8 years of being married and 32 years of living here on Earth, this is the first time in both our lives that we are not celebrating Christmas.
It's quite liberating actually.
We no longer feel pressured to have the best Christmas decors in our village (we won first place in a Christmas decor contest the first year we lived here in our village in 2007 then 2nd or 3rd place the next year); Whenever our neighbors would give us gifts, we no longer feel pressured to reciprocate (I mean if they really wanted to give us gifts, thank you. If it's because they want something in return, then that's not very Christmassy now, is it?... You should hear Peter's story about this middle aged couple fighting at Parvati store coz they ran out of brownies they can afford to give as gifts to everyone they know... tsk, tsk.); I no longer have to stress over the fact that I'd also have to clean up all the decors once Christmas season is over; no more hoarding of food for Noche Buena; and no more stressing about the huge jump in our electricity bill; and probably many more things.
We're free!
Some of you might see this as a sad thing, thinking how psycho we are or perhaps, think how tragic our childhood may have been for being this way now. Well, that's a long story to tell and to each his own, honey (but you can start by reading my earlier blog posts about Christmas.) Although, we do practice the values of Christmas whenever we can (kindness, generosity, sincerity, forgiveness, etc.) and that's what matters. We just don't like all the commercialization and "plasticness" (literally and figuratively) that also comes with it.
On the other hand, we are thankful to the universe for letting us be. We know we are unconventional and weird, always have been, thank you very much. Having said that, we did have an early noche buena some time last week. Well, it kind of looked like a noche buena. Peter had a meeting in Makati and foreseeing that that would be the last time he would be going out of the house this year, it would be the perfect time to go visit some stores and use all those remaining GCs we've accumulated the latter part of the year, before they expire on Dec. 31.
Ta-da!
Oh, and last night, Peter kept asking me if I was okay that he didn't have any Christmas gift for me and I kept answering "Duh?!!! Of course, I don't mind. We're no longer Christmassy, remember?" He asked me that over and over and I kept telling him, I really don't care. I'm not that kind of person and I'd rather have him follow all my requests at home rather than give me some fancy schmansy gift. I guess he couldn't bear his excitement anymore that he pointed to his gift which was apparently sitting on my bookshelf, hiding in plain sight! And when I opened it...
Ta-da!
GE DV1 HD Camcorder. I was so surprised! He said he bought this for me coz he knows I'll be staying in Boracay for 6 weeks come summer and he wanted me to have a good waterproof, (til 5m) shockproof (til 1.5m) and dustproof underwater camcorder since our Olympus underwater cam is nearing its death, so to speak. GE DV1 HD Camcorder boasts of having full 1080p recording and 5-megapixel stills, HDMI out, a SD card slot for storage, a 2.5-inch display, an integrated USB connector which will make it easy for me to do some video blogging in the future. Moreover, it has a 5.5mm fixed focal length lens (33mm-35mm film equivalent) and a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor. It can take images at a speed of 7.3 frames per second and the DV1 lets you take pictures at the same time as recording a movie. The LCD screen is 2.5-inches. Really nice!
So it's a good thing we're no longer Christmassy. At least, now, I don't feel so pressured to give Peter a gift. Coz really, I don't have one. But I do promise to love and cherish him forever, and I'm glad that's enough! So, Merry Christmas? ^_^
So anyway, we said to ourselves that perhaps, it's time to practice what's really in our hearts, which is, to not practice Christmas. True enough, the whole universe conspired for us to get what we want. I became so busy with other more important things that I didn't have the time to set up our usual Christmas decors. Peter was too lazy and resistant to do it too. So after 8 years of being married and 32 years of living here on Earth, this is the first time in both our lives that we are not celebrating Christmas.
It's quite liberating actually.
We no longer feel pressured to have the best Christmas decors in our village (we won first place in a Christmas decor contest the first year we lived here in our village in 2007 then 2nd or 3rd place the next year); Whenever our neighbors would give us gifts, we no longer feel pressured to reciprocate (I mean if they really wanted to give us gifts, thank you. If it's because they want something in return, then that's not very Christmassy now, is it?... You should hear Peter's story about this middle aged couple fighting at Parvati store coz they ran out of brownies they can afford to give as gifts to everyone they know... tsk, tsk.); I no longer have to stress over the fact that I'd also have to clean up all the decors once Christmas season is over; no more hoarding of food for Noche Buena; and no more stressing about the huge jump in our electricity bill; and probably many more things.
We're free!
Some of you might see this as a sad thing, thinking how psycho we are or perhaps, think how tragic our childhood may have been for being this way now. Well, that's a long story to tell and to each his own, honey (but you can start by reading my earlier blog posts about Christmas.) Although, we do practice the values of Christmas whenever we can (kindness, generosity, sincerity, forgiveness, etc.) and that's what matters. We just don't like all the commercialization and "plasticness" (literally and figuratively) that also comes with it.
On the other hand, we are thankful to the universe for letting us be. We know we are unconventional and weird, always have been, thank you very much. Having said that, we did have an early noche buena some time last week. Well, it kind of looked like a noche buena. Peter had a meeting in Makati and foreseeing that that would be the last time he would be going out of the house this year, it would be the perfect time to go visit some stores and use all those remaining GCs we've accumulated the latter part of the year, before they expire on Dec. 31.
Ta-da!
Oh, and last night, Peter kept asking me if I was okay that he didn't have any Christmas gift for me and I kept answering "Duh?!!! Of course, I don't mind. We're no longer Christmassy, remember?" He asked me that over and over and I kept telling him, I really don't care. I'm not that kind of person and I'd rather have him follow all my requests at home rather than give me some fancy schmansy gift. I guess he couldn't bear his excitement anymore that he pointed to his gift which was apparently sitting on my bookshelf, hiding in plain sight! And when I opened it...
Ta-da!
GE DV1 HD Camcorder. I was so surprised! He said he bought this for me coz he knows I'll be staying in Boracay for 6 weeks come summer and he wanted me to have a good waterproof, (til 5m) shockproof (til 1.5m) and dustproof underwater camcorder since our Olympus underwater cam is nearing its death, so to speak. GE DV1 HD Camcorder boasts of having full 1080p recording and 5-megapixel stills, HDMI out, a SD card slot for storage, a 2.5-inch display, an integrated USB connector which will make it easy for me to do some video blogging in the future. Moreover, it has a 5.5mm fixed focal length lens (33mm-35mm film equivalent) and a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor. It can take images at a speed of 7.3 frames per second and the DV1 lets you take pictures at the same time as recording a movie. The LCD screen is 2.5-inches. Really nice!
So it's a good thing we're no longer Christmassy. At least, now, I don't feel so pressured to give Peter a gift. Coz really, I don't have one. But I do promise to love and cherish him forever, and I'm glad that's enough! So, Merry Christmas? ^_^
2 comments:
It is nice to liberate ourselves from pressures of the traditional society. :-)
I totally agree. Couldn't have said it better myself. :-)
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