Tree Time
The day after thanksgiving is the Reyes official “Put up the Tree Day.” Before that, Dad used to get all huffy and puffy about the start of the Christmas season. For him, it starts the day AFTER Thanksgiving.
Every one knows that in the Philippines, the Christmas Season starts as soon as the
“-ber” months come along. As soon as September starts, people start thinking of presents, food, and shopping.
Personally, I’d start thinking of Christmas wrapping as soon as June. I start color coordinating and buying up lots and lots of satin ribbons and wrapping paper. It’s cheapest around that time anyway. Divisoria Shopping is so much cheaper and there is a lot less traffic.
So as soon as the fourth Thursday of November ends, the Christmas tree goes up.
Plastic of course, as the real trees just recently made its appearance in specialized markets. They smell good but they dry up so fast, and the needles start falling off making such a mess on the floor. The decorations don’t go on properly and it looks kind of weird…but as mentioned, we ARE used to the plastic ones. The real ones are brown and dead by Christmas Eve. Really depressing.
It smells good though…
We usually have a tall green plastic tree. We used to have this strange silver foil feather duster kind of tree. Mama did too. It was silvery, crinkly and sparkly.
Mama’s tree had small story behind it. I remember Mama telling me how she came to buy that particular tree. She said when she saw it at the store and fell in love with it. The problem was that she always had that chronic money problem of hers? (The one which tells her that everything was just too expensive.) Anyway, she fell in love with the foil tree and then proceeded to just look at it. Then she looked at it, then left and then came back for another look…then she left again only to go back a little later on to have just one more look at it.
After coming back to it for the -enth time, Papa finally lost all patience. And told her to just go buy it already…and he proceeded to buy it for her. She thought it was really sweet. I think Papa just got tired of walking back to the thing. You know how guys are when you take them shopping with you….
So that tree was up for years and years…it was decorated with really ornate Christmas balls (Mama made them herself with beads and sequins) and instant presents under the tree.
You know how when you’re a kid you cannot contain yourself when there are presents under the tree?
You peer though the wrapper in case it’s the least bit transparent, you peek through the slit where one end of the wrapper meets the other, and you shake it and shake it trying to guess what’s in the box? Well. Nothing is more frustrating than when the box doesn’t shake…especially when it’s really big and heavy.
After days of suspense, your self-control breaks and you really, really have to see what’s inside…
…so you look around to make sure no one is around, take one end of the present and loosen the tape a little, hoping to maybe see the label of the gift that will tell you what’s in it.
Without fail, I did that with the untagged presents under Mama’s tree. It’s just so suggestive laying there pooled at the foot of the tree. I always asked Juliet…
“Kanino to?”
She’d say, “Wala…
“Anong laman?”
“Wala lang yan.”
And really, what kind of provocation is that? Who’s it for and what’s inside? It’s aggravating not to know... So after a few days shaking and weighing, I peel the tape off the taped up bottom…and in all anticipation, I finally take a look.
I see yellow pages.
I take a longer look and realize it’s the Yellow Pages.
Really, the actual Yellow Pages….you know? “Let your fingers do the walking?”
Oo nga. Wala talaga.
Its just fake out Christmas presents to make the tree look more Christmassy, at least until the real presents come and to “keep the look” until the Christmas decors have to come down at the end of the season.
But without fail, every year, I go crazy just looking at those untagged, unopened presents and I just have to have a look.
Every single year.
The thing is, those “presents” don’t change in wrapper or anything. It looked the same every single year, but every year, I forget what’s in it and it always drove me crazy.
Yellow pages….I still laugh at myself when I see one of those laying about.
Every one knows that in the Philippines, the Christmas Season starts as soon as the
“-ber” months come along. As soon as September starts, people start thinking of presents, food, and shopping.
Personally, I’d start thinking of Christmas wrapping as soon as June. I start color coordinating and buying up lots and lots of satin ribbons and wrapping paper. It’s cheapest around that time anyway. Divisoria Shopping is so much cheaper and there is a lot less traffic.
So as soon as the fourth Thursday of November ends, the Christmas tree goes up.
Plastic of course, as the real trees just recently made its appearance in specialized markets. They smell good but they dry up so fast, and the needles start falling off making such a mess on the floor. The decorations don’t go on properly and it looks kind of weird…but as mentioned, we ARE used to the plastic ones. The real ones are brown and dead by Christmas Eve. Really depressing.
It smells good though…
We usually have a tall green plastic tree. We used to have this strange silver foil feather duster kind of tree. Mama did too. It was silvery, crinkly and sparkly.
Mama’s tree had small story behind it. I remember Mama telling me how she came to buy that particular tree. She said when she saw it at the store and fell in love with it. The problem was that she always had that chronic money problem of hers? (The one which tells her that everything was just too expensive.) Anyway, she fell in love with the foil tree and then proceeded to just look at it. Then she looked at it, then left and then came back for another look…then she left again only to go back a little later on to have just one more look at it.
After coming back to it for the -enth time, Papa finally lost all patience. And told her to just go buy it already…and he proceeded to buy it for her. She thought it was really sweet. I think Papa just got tired of walking back to the thing. You know how guys are when you take them shopping with you….
So that tree was up for years and years…it was decorated with really ornate Christmas balls (Mama made them herself with beads and sequins) and instant presents under the tree.
You know how when you’re a kid you cannot contain yourself when there are presents under the tree?
You peer though the wrapper in case it’s the least bit transparent, you peek through the slit where one end of the wrapper meets the other, and you shake it and shake it trying to guess what’s in the box? Well. Nothing is more frustrating than when the box doesn’t shake…especially when it’s really big and heavy.
After days of suspense, your self-control breaks and you really, really have to see what’s inside…
…so you look around to make sure no one is around, take one end of the present and loosen the tape a little, hoping to maybe see the label of the gift that will tell you what’s in it.
Without fail, I did that with the untagged presents under Mama’s tree. It’s just so suggestive laying there pooled at the foot of the tree. I always asked Juliet…
“Kanino to?”
She’d say, “Wala…
“Anong laman?”
“Wala lang yan.”
And really, what kind of provocation is that? Who’s it for and what’s inside? It’s aggravating not to know... So after a few days shaking and weighing, I peel the tape off the taped up bottom…and in all anticipation, I finally take a look.
I see yellow pages.
I take a longer look and realize it’s the Yellow Pages.
Really, the actual Yellow Pages….you know? “Let your fingers do the walking?”
Oo nga. Wala talaga.
Its just fake out Christmas presents to make the tree look more Christmassy, at least until the real presents come and to “keep the look” until the Christmas decors have to come down at the end of the season.
But without fail, every year, I go crazy just looking at those untagged, unopened presents and I just have to have a look.
Every single year.
The thing is, those “presents” don’t change in wrapper or anything. It looked the same every single year, but every year, I forget what’s in it and it always drove me crazy.
Yellow pages….I still laugh at myself when I see one of those laying about.
posted by breathlez m.d. | 11:04 AM
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