It’s only 10 days until Christmas but it feels like it’s nowhere near at all. I have seen the crowd in the “tiangge’s” and night markets. The traffic is at its worst. Street kids don’t even make an effort to bang that tin rhythmically when singing carols. For them, the season is just another scheme for begging on the dangerous roads. These things doesn’t help in putting the christmas-y mode. Plus all those damn Christmas songs that don’t apply to our geographical setting. Every year, I feel more isolated to this occasion than the previous one and this year gave it a huge leap towards total withdrawal. It reached that point wherein it is “inappropriate” to be festive because of recent events.
Typhoon Ondoy was a record-breaker and a first in Philippine history. Everything about it is all over the ‘net and everyone has their own Ondoy story to tell.
The Maguindanao massacre is too heinous to comprehend. I have observed that people are still in shock and some refuse to talk about it at length and would rather not bring it up. Kinda like a traumatic experience that we would rather forget about and not deal with and hope that it goes away forever. I can only imagine what it’s like for the families of the victims. 
And the victims themselves. If there’s any thing that would make me believe in ghosts, this would be it. I want to believe that the victims will haunt their killers every single second of their living lives and won’t stop until the killers go mental and finally end up in a crazy cell.
And this just in, as if we haven’t had enough, Mayon volcano is currently oozing fiery red hot lava and spewing ash that led to the evacuation of more than 20,000 people. They are likely to spend Christmas on evacuation centers.
Sure we have our winning moments. Manny Pacquiao made it on Time magazine’s cover then he won his historic 7th boxing title. Then there’s Efren Penaflorida bagging the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year Award. But still, it is a really suckfest of a year. I just want Christmas to be done and over with and start the new year already.
Typhoon Ondoy, Maguindanao Massacre and Mayon Volcano Versus Christmas 2009
It’s only 10 days until Christmas but it feels like it’s nowhere near at all. I have seen the crowd in the “tiangge’s” and night markets. The traffic is at its worst. Street kids don’t even make an effort to bang that tin rhythmically when singing carols. For them, the season is just another scheme for begging on the dangerous roads. These things doesn’t help in putting the christmas-y mode. Plus all those damn Christmas songs that don’t apply to our geographical setting. Every year, I feel more isolated to this occasion than the previous one and this year gave it a huge leap towards total withdrawal. It reached that point wherein it is “inappropriate” to be festive because of recent events.
The Maguindanao massacre is too heinous to comprehend. I have observed that people are still in shock and some refuse to talk about it at length and would rather not bring it up. Kinda like a traumatic experience that we would rather forget about and not deal with and hope that it goes away forever. I can only imagine what it’s like for the families of the victims.
And the victims themselves. If there’s any thing that would make me believe in ghosts, this would be it. I want to believe that the victims will haunt their killers every single second of their living lives and won’t stop until the killers go mental and finally end up in a crazy cell.
Sure we have our winning moments. Manny Pacquiao made it on Time magazine’s cover then he won his historic 7th boxing title. Then there’s Efren Penaflorida bagging the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year Award. But still, it is a really suckfest of a year. I just want Christmas to be done and over with and start the new year already.