Annahilated

Not A Very Nice Christmas Post

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year- Not!

At the risk of sounding like the Grinch, I really am not too gungho over Christmas. I have the highest stress level around this time of the year. Work just and deadline seem to pile up along with other ‘extra-curricular’ activities you have to do for Christmas, like that dance number for the Christmas party or helping wrap office giveaways because the Boss is too stingy to hire people who do this kinds of things.

Of course it’s a major killer to go home. After spending hours of overtime, you spend ages waiting for a ride. Cabs are nowhere to be found or they charge exorbitant fees that one as desperate as I am has no choice but to agree with. There are simply no words to describe how the traffic makes me feel. I cannot avoid falling asleep on the drive home (it’s a blessing the cab drivers I pick are good-hearted).

The crowds in shopping areas make me curse in a number of different languages (of course, I never do). And you know one can never avoid shopping; you really just have to give something to the people important to you in this Christian country. And sometimes even to the many not too important ones which necessitate the yearly pilgrimage my sister and I make to the shopping mecca of the Philippines- Divisoria.

For Manila is but a transient home, I am obligated to go back to my ‘real’ home on holidays like this. You cannot imagine the stress of reserving a bus seat (I do not even attempt booking a plane ticket at this time.). And then you stress over whether you will get to the station on time (for if you don’t they will forfeit your reserved seat) after you manage to extricate yourself of these last minute office parties you just have to attend lest you be branded an ingrate by the boss. Then brace yourself for the longest trip of your life as the expressway is almost always packed with cars.

And when you manage to get home, you do not even see any of your family members (except maybe on Christmas itself) as they are busy doing the rounds of these obligatory parties. Agghh…

posted by annahilated @ 2:09 AM