A Happy Christmas!
Christmas, has the gentlest of voice, but it speaks most authoritatively. All it needs are for us to lend our ears for it to come alive.
If we can’t find the spirit of greeting someone, “A happy Christmas,” alas, we can’t find it even under a Christmas tree. Countless times will this amiable salutation be exchanged and spoken before the present and following days pass over Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and Region 1.
A compliment of the season and to most, not mere matter of course. You may not agree, but there’s this most rightful goodwill in the utterance of the two words this year’s end than in the generality of compliments we usually hear daily.
See the hearty and jovial animation of the countenance of the person saying it – her/his honest and pleasant voice, the rough but friendly pressure of handshake – goes along with the words. It’s obvious message, “I mean what I say,” contrary to ordinary practice of everyday compliments.
You have this feeling there’s less selfishness than at any other time since what is put in the stomach is more thought of, than what comes out of the purse or wallet and spent.
Whereas before, when about to purchase something, you pause and mumble to yourself, “Saan kon gatangen ta nagina met.” But during Christmas, bubbling with gaiety that somebody truly greeted you, “Merry Christmas, my pren,” you throw caution to the winds, go on a buying whirl and never you mind if the moneybag is emptied.
When mortals think of their stomachs, with prospect of having their delectable wants realized, ay Caramba! Their natural disposition of being “naimot, kuripot” withers and die, and such creatures become generous and meek animals, burping with satisfaction that the stomach was filled to the brim.
On second thought, maybe Christmas is the time when mortals feel understanding, thinking more of the discomforts of others and thus spend their cintimo or peseta for others, without thought of themselves being extravagant.
There’s one essential difference between Christmas time in CAR and Region 1: the weather. Cold accompanies Christmas season in CAR; warmth sticks with Region 1.
Pleasant sight it is, on a clear but chilly morn, with bells tingling, to see highlander and lowlander women residing in CAR with their cheeks pinched with cold yet glowing, and with breath vapor coming from their mouths, they exclaim to those they meet, “Merry Christmas! Ay, nalipatak inkuyog diay ited ko kuma kenyam nga gift.”
See what the two words can do to open purses. Uray kadi la awan ti ginatang mo nga Christmas gift para diay nangibagaam, napilitan ka nga nangibaga ti kasdiay, ta anya ngarud, Christmas. Ket talaga metten ton a gumatang ka ti Christmas gift para kenyana nu agsabat kayo manen.
If Ebenezer Scrooge, that elderly miser you’ve read during elementary who was transformed into a kinder, gentle creature during that Christmas time, well, it can very well happen to anyone.
Ah Kong fervently hopes “ninongs,” and “ninangs,” haven’t perfected the game of “hide ‘n seek” or “Find Me if You can,” when their inaanak come a ’knocking on their doors, yelling, “Merry Christmas Ninong/Ninang!”
Ah, who’s suspicious like a police investigator, suspects there are some ninongs/ ninangs who instantly become adept at becoming invisible whenever they hear the words, “Merry Christmas,” turning into “Now you see me, now, you don’t,” when they spot inaanak from a distance, instead of beckoning, “Ho-ho-ho, my inaanak. MELLY KULISMAS to you. Come sit and open this gift for you. . .”
Many good things have been said and sung about Christmas, a spirit of enjoyment and there prevails a universal freedom from restraint: the most serious relax, the most frigid melt and men are guilty of sipping barrels of wine while the women pretend not to mind.
Jovial farewells are spoken of parting year 2019 and just as jovial, a welcome given to coming successor, Year 2020.
Friend dine with friend like true highlander and lowlander – using their hands, never mind if there are foreigner visitors in your home, intimidated by you eating with you hand. Old intimacies are renewed, old romances re-kindled, differences forgotten and a spirit of kindly feeling and “goodwill to men,” truly befitting the season reigns in all bosoms.
Perchance, during the Christmas season, you once looked long and hard in the darkness settling over your barangay and noticed a fellow, a member of the Armed Forces in the Philippines (AFP), as he lonely along the street.
You have discerned the weight of armed conflicts that he carried in his bosom. For sure he’s going home to see his family, you thought. But then again, maybe not, you wondered.
For maybe the soldier was trying to find a manger in the dark where a Baby lay and stand before His Light and say, “Merry Christ” to a Baby King.
Even the grey or white haired Lolos and Lolas, surrounded by descendants feel their creaking bones renewed, unmindful of the gambols of little grandchildren and the earthly hilarity of others in the clan, which Time, will record that such gathering be repeated when Christmas comes round the corner next year.
Indeed, all have seen Christmas for many years and have beheld its rites and solemnities and never saw Christmas neglected except among those classes of murky spirits, like Ah Kong, who are afraid to be cheerful and utter, “Happy Christmas.”
Whether you be gentle or fierce, Ah’s object is to beg, with most genuine fervor, that you’ll not relinquish, now or ever, observance of uttering “Merry Christmas,” an old, blessed and hallowed custom, which in itself is emblem of life.
Or, if you want to do it better, why, salute somebody with a hearty merry Christmas kiss as true eloquence of two smacking lips yet achieved.
Dedicatory to Readers this Christmas:
Dear Readers, – This is our Christmas thanks and in most especial manner, dedicated for you. Everything written in Herald Express’s Daily Laborer column are written for you – to inform and amuse. But so sorry, Ah confesses, sometimes what he hopes to write mingles with his anxiety for your amusement. It’s a weakness incident to mortality.
We, at Herald Express trust we shall readily be more believed when we declare, that in this dedication for you for the year, we have thought only of securing for you at Daily Laborer column, a literary banquet of rich and varied excellence, proportionate to the respect we have for you.
Thanks to you readers, talented and imminent as you are – who have so nobly and faithfully rallied round Herald Express.
Were we to indulge in much talk concerning our affairs, a numberless obligation would occur to us. We prefer, therefore limiting ourselves to general expression of thanks. Wherever we turn, to the East, West, North, South, our thanks. To each and all, we wish, from the bottom of our souls, the MERRIEST CHRISTMAS.
Nor shall Herald Express ever be niggard of good wishes when we think and speak of you, readers. Hundreds of you have never seen us at Herald Express, nor can we tell how our various lucubration may individually affect you.
Yet we know that there is a sympathy between us: that you are disposed to be lenient to our errors, and that, if ever Daily Laborer column brought a smile to your lips, or a gentle tear into your eye, you love us for those smiles and for those tears.
If suspicion should chance to cross your minds that we are occasionally severe, or hasty, or vain, or foolish, we beseech you to believe that we are ourselves deeply, and, at times, painfully, conscious of our numerous deficiencies, and that it’s our earnest desire to amend and purify our character, both in the eyes of the public and of friends whom we value so much.
Nothing but amenity and good humor – nods, kisses and smiles – characterize us this season and, if, amidst these, a few deeper and more solemn chords be touched, our Christmas gambols will not be the less delightful, that they carry a moral with them.
Again, our season’s wishes – that you may live a thousand years. And with the pleasing hope that come Christmas, you may eat till the stomach cannot take it anymore. With this hope upon his lips, Ah humbly subscribes himself,
Yours, with faithfulness and respect. Ah Kong.
Here is a message, from our friend, Sherryl Woods, an American, this Christmas, “The light of Christmas star to you. The warmth of home and hearth to you. The cheer and goodwill of friends to you. The joy of a thousand angels to you. The love of the Son and God’s peace to you.”
