Holiday economics

BACK IN THE PHILIPPINES, when the Siberian wind breezes against your face, you know this much is true: it's Christmas time. Rustling leaves whisper holiday nuances in your ear. Christmas bells hanging in the Christmas tree jangle to remind you its time to fill up Christmas socks.

Christmas shopping then becomes inevitable. You love it for the fun of traipsing around brightly- lit stores, meeting friends and relatives who also carry with them an armload of gift-giving items. You adore it for the pleasure of buying stuff at great discounts in Christmas bazaars. You look forward to more shopping as the Christmas carols lift your spirits high. You want to get this shirt for junior, you want to get this dress for hija, you want to get this necklace for inday, you want to get this bracelet for toto, you want to get this and that for self.

But when you get back home, you'll somehow hate the look of your wallet, thick with loads of receipts, but now devoid of the real thing - cash. Then you remember that the one common pitfall you repeatedly get into, year-in and year-out, is failure to carry on the purchase of Christmas gifts months before the holiday rush.

In the Philippines, the spirit of Christmas is intoxicating as beer. For non-stop partying, indeed, brings you to lots of beer-drinking and food festival. Stocking your pantry with fruit cocktail and noodles as early as October could have prepared you beforehand for the trademark fruit salad and spaghetti that graces the Filipino holiday celebration. But more often than not, you wait for that particular scent of the season until you make your list. So just when the crates of apples, pears, and grapes appear in the huge supermarkets or the street fruit stands, you then remember to make your long list. Now, you're in for the big challenge. How to give everyone on your list a gift, and fill the table with plenty of food to last from Christmas until Three Kings ? all at the same time. Tough.

This is the common dilemma of Filipinos who seldom get over with manana habit. I should-have, could-have, and would-have, seem to be the words for the season. Scourging at the pillars of crowded grocery stands further rubs it in. The long list goes ? queso de bola, hamon de bola, chicken jamonado, lengua estofado, lechon. And still there are those ten or so hijados and hijadas that have to be given toys for Christmas. Plus lolo and lola, tito and tita, mare and pare, manoy and manay, and on top of them all, tatay and nanay.

But come Christmas Eve, you wonder how you've made everything fit in your budget. Everyone has a gift to open and the table is filled with delectable holiday food. Somehow you smile and understand that the spirit of Christmas takes care of everything.

Back in Japan, you wonder how you've lived years of Christmas with all things sake or ebi instead of de leche or de fruta. Somehow you also smile and accept that even in Japan where noche buena is not a part of culture, the Christmas spirit way back home in the Philippines takes care of you.

To all wallets, thick or thin - Merry Christmas. *

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Renzi is a graduate of Economics with a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of St. La Salle. While working full-time in the Trust & Investments Division of one of the 10 largest banks in the Philippines, she dabbles into writing and does mountain biking as her weekend hobby. You may email the author at renzijuarez@philippinestoday.net.