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Haven’t you had enough of people who constantly declare their hatred for the Christmas season? I’m the last person on earth the Vatican will look into endorsing Christmas but I just can’t hate it. My mother exiled our father to the province on exactly the 25th of December. All my school years, I spent the holidays with a broken heart due to varying kinds of love problems.

But surely I couldn’t hate Christmas just for those reasons.

I know the season will tend to highlight whatever’s missing in a person’s life to multiple degrees but won’t it do the same for the things that we do have?

The fact is, if Christmas brings more good than bad then I’ll support it. It’s not about religion or anything really. I recently snapped the following line to a girl here at work when she broadcasted her feelings against the holiday season.

“Look, if you hate Christmas so much, don’t worry, sino ba nagsabi sa’yo na gusto ka din ng Pasko? Also, If you want, I can go and talk to our accounting and tell them on your behalf that you won’t need your 13th month pay, your bonus, your leave encashment and I’ll have them take your name off the raffle and the exchange gift list.”

Everybody went quiet but I wasn’t done yet.

“O ano, if you can’t afford to walk-the-walk, don’t talk-the-talk.”

PS. Thanks for the RX Morning Rush for the borrowed quotes.

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Here’s a list of things you hear your exchange gift monito/monita say when they didn’t like the gift you gave them. From The Morning Rush’s Hot Ten and some personal experiences.


“Wow!... Towel…”

“Bakit pa tayo nag-wishlist kung di din naman pala nasusunod??”

“Thanks! You know, I’m starting a picture frame collection…”

“Didn’t I gave this to you last Christmas?”

After the gift giving, you hear your monito/monita whisper to an officemate: “Ei, wanna trade gifts?”

You know your monito/monita hated your gift when they don’t take the gift out of the box and looks over other people’s gifts.

“Wow! Bagay to kay… yaya…”

“Wow! My grandpa’s gonna love this!”

When your monito/monita asks for the receipt to check if the gift is over the agreed upon minimum cost.

When your monito/monita asks for the receipt so that s/he could have it exchanged at the mall.

“What’s the theme this week? Something You Hate??”

“Wow… um, it’s the thought that counts!”

“Well, at least clean up the dust when you recycle…”

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I just saw an ad last night about the new Citroen C4. For those who follow the WRC like me, yes, that's the car record-breaking driver Sebastian Loeb drives. Citroen actually have a series of these Transformers-like ads and since I saw it yesterday, could that mean Citroen is finally selling their cars here?

By the way, this is the car that fed dust to the Ford Focus, the Subaru Impreza and the Mitsubishi Evo9.

I also like the idea that the ad never featured the car's features or showed shots of it sweeping through buildings and splashing through pools of water on the dirt-road. For people who already saw it on the WRC, there's just no question what the car can do.



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