MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

It may seem a bit early (Okay. SUPER EARLY) to be saying that but Christmas is already in full swing here in the Philippines.

The office is full of decorations. The Christmas trees here are much like everything else here in the Philippines.

Colorful. Bright. Loud.

Christmas trees already, you ask? You must be thinking how can they survive till New Years. Well.. they don't have to. The beauty of living in a tropical country is that there are no real Christmas trees anyways so you can put up your plastic tree as early as you'd like. In recent years, high end stores have started to import trees closer to the holiday, but given this year's worldwide economic downturn who knows if that will happen.

My coworker Anne has invited me to spend Christmas with her and her family ( YAY!!!!! no sitting at home alone Christmas day.) She even had me help pick out decoration for her tree.

While helping her decide between the sparkly silver balls with glitter and the shiny silver beaded velvet balls, I thought back to Christmases past. I realized that for the past four years, we haven't had a Christmas tree, decorations, or anything of the sort. It's pretty surprising thatwe didn't. I'm huge on the superficial things that make a holiday. I ALWAYS make a huge hullabaloo about my birthday, having turkey on Thanksgiving, and a Christmas tree for the holidays. It's part of who I am. I'm amazed I didn't bug anyone to death about not having them.

The SUPER surprising thing is it wasn't that bad. It was even pretty awesome one year. My parents drove from SoCal to join my sister and I in NorCal on Christmas Eve and we had a hearty midnight snack. We all slept in till almost noon on Christmas
Day and exchanged unwrapped christmas gifts before lunch.

This year, I am getting the longest Christmas season ever, decorations galore, and Christmas carols for a full three months (THAT'S 1/4th OF A YEAR!!!) and you'd think it'd make me happy. It does but it's kinda superficial like the shiny silver beaded velvet ball I ended up picking for Anne's tree. I just want my Chinese family that really only does Christmas because I will a pain in the ass if we don't. They don't even have to do the Christmas part this year!

Too bad you can't reset the clock and go back.

In the meantime, I'm going to make the best of it and enjoy humming to Christmas jingles in a language I don't understand in 90 degree weather.