Peanut Butter Chunky Chips Ahoy! and the Holiday of Obligation

Looking back at how the holiday season of 2008 went for me, I can safely say that it was different. I can safely say I missed out on the “spirit” of things. And I don’t think my mother being sick has that big an impact on why it went that way. It just became a realization during the holiday rush.

Up ‘til December 22, I was in the malls in Makati, looking for, well, Peanut Butter Chunky Chips Ahoy!. Why? Because based on what my mother and I thought, it would be a gift that Jonathan would really like. Jonathan was the son of my godmother, and is one of the kids we usually give gifts to during Christmas. He visited the house once, and like the Chips Ahoy! biscuits that my mother served. After searching three supermarkets, I couldn’t find any, so I settled for the other 3 variants of Chips! Ahoy. That probably best illustrates how the Christmas rush went for me: looking for good gifts, gifts that we know the other person wants and would appreciate as a gift (exceeding expectations if we can), and sometimes settling for the next best thing.

I have been involved in at least four kris kringle events in the office, and so I really felt like a genie most of the weekends I spent looking for those items on that wish list: computer speakers, Josh Groban’s NOEL album, pink and green jackets with hoods, an Eight-ball, and a branded office bag. These items were aside from the gifts to selected officemates, which range from nice gifts to trinkets: a FINO luggage tag; a tiger stuffed toy; gift certificates from Powerbooks; Pizza Hut discount cards, and; chocolates. One can never go wrong with chocolates, so that was basically the vanilla gift for some of my office friends, when I’ve already given up on going up and down SM Megamall and EDSA Shangri-la to find stuff for this specific person. Still OTHER gifts aside from these were my gifts to the kids we usually give holiday gifts to. And that meant another day or two of walking around Toy Kingdom, looking for cheap but “this-would-do” gifts for the little ones. Then there’s the cash gifts still to people we usually give gifts to. These, aside from my own gifts to my mother: several hats, Marks&Spencer biscuits, shopping money. You can probably already imagine the contents of my wallet—mostly credit card charge slips.

Aside from the gift-giving, there was the holiday grocery shopping. For ham, for salad, for pasta, for fruits, etc. , etc. At the very least, I kinda had my arm muscles stretched from carrying that much load. The irony is that, most of the dishes my mother prepared are to be subsequently given out in containers to family friends and relatives. That was actually the main event on Christmas day, accounting for who has not yet been sent what.

And so you see, all these stuff, plus the fact that I was at work up to the 24th of December, arriving at 11PM to a house where the people (my mother, our help, and my aunt’s family who visited for Christmas) are already asleep and had no intention of having Christmas Eve dinner, really dampened the mood for me. For one, I felt that with everything that happened (and is still happening)—my mother’s illness and the house construction I started – I had thought that it would be a more practical holiday season, spending only on the essential things. But no…. the obligation to give gifts was still there, staunchly supported by my mother. There were people we always gave gifts to, and that’s that. My godchildren always got gifts from me, and that’s that. So despite my anxiety on how to fund her medical expenses for next year, I couldn’t really say “No” to her passive-aggressive methods. Make no mistake about it, I do not mind giving gifts, but only to the people who I would really like to gifts to, and considering the precarious situation of my personal finances, it would have been limited only to inexpensive gifts to very few people.
And so, as I mentioned to an office friend before the break for the holidays, this season is lost to me. It has turned into a holiday of obligation. Obligations to think of the best gift for that specific person who you have given gifts to for many years now, as if you were the only one who will give a gift to that person (and so it should be very special). As if you were competing in a gift-giving contest to that person and your entire future depends on giving that person something that he or she will like. Obligations to serve up a feast during Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners. The joy of gift-giving. The excitement of the holidays. It’s not there anymore with me.

My office friend advised me against being a Scrooge. I told her I couldn’t be. Ebenezer Scrooge was rich. Plus, I feel more like The Grinch, especially in that part of the movie where he mentioned how Christmas became more about gifts and spending. Hm. I’m thinking if I should change my blog title now from “Mr. Brightside” to ‘The Underpaid Grinch”. Hm.