**As published in Sunstar:
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/opinion/2012/11/26/brett-pinay-diaries-part-iv-255132
DECEMBER is a very celebrated month back home. Everyone becomes extravagant not just financially, but also emotionally and spiritually. We give and share, we eat, we drink, we celebrate to commemorate Christ’s birth, and we spend quality cheerful times with our dearest and nearest.
However, for reasons that I myself can’t name and probably due to past experiences that made me not look forward to the Yuletide season, I became the exact opposite of the Christmas Queen. If Grinch exists, I know we’d get along very well with my likewise bah-humbug attitude. Now that I’m away from home though, I realize that even just the mere thought of not getting past December without my family and loved ones is heart-wrenching.
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/opinion/2012/11/26/brett-pinay-diaries-part-iv-255132
DECEMBER is a very celebrated month back home. Everyone becomes extravagant not just financially, but also emotionally and spiritually. We give and share, we eat, we drink, we celebrate to commemorate Christ’s birth, and we spend quality cheerful times with our dearest and nearest.
However, for reasons that I myself can’t name and probably due to past experiences that made me not look forward to the Yuletide season, I became the exact opposite of the Christmas Queen. If Grinch exists, I know we’d get along very well with my likewise bah-humbug attitude. Now that I’m away from home though, I realize that even just the mere thought of not getting past December without my family and loved ones is heart-wrenching.
The season has not yet arrived but Christmas blues are now heavy on my shoulders. Could it be because I know that around this time of the year, the Yuletide spirit is very much alive back home already and that I’m missing the slightest semblance to such festivity where I am right now? And this forlornness is strengthened when I come to accept the tragic fact that I won’t be able to have my fair share of Christmas Eve’s pinikpikan. Now that’s one very, very sad thing indeed (not to mention all these other family traditions that I will just yearningly dream about).
I have to face it; those dreadful Christmas blues have snuck up on me earlier than necessary. As if being unsettled is not enough to deal with, those inevitable tidal waves of homesickness still surge every now and then. Undoubtedly, it will strike the strongest come Christmas day.
It’s a shared fate -- that despite Christmas being a time for festivities and jovial spirits, it is also a time for strong negative emotions. Reflections on lost loved ones, knowing that we can’t afford the luxury of changing location overnight and thus miss out on family gatherings, or spending the holidays alone cause that self-inflicted torture of wallowing in misery. People are more vulnerable to depression during this season because emotions are more heightened. And I believe there are hundred others out there like me who just wish we could fast forward through the holidays; that the season would pass by like a blur.
It makes me pine more for my sister’s paella, my brother-in-law’s oven-baked chicken, and even though there’s always a flop in my baking, I would still miss making the frosting extra sweet so it will hopefully overpower the burned portions of my cake. And that’s just with the food. The heavier stuff is worse. Just thinking I could not get a Christmas hug from my nephews and niece is painful enough. Not to mention that I will not have the chance to remind my lola how lucky she is that she’s still very much alive to spend what would probably be her 102nd Christmas on earth.
I know. I should stop lest I would triple this self-imposed agony. Oh, the rigors and misery that comes with the hope to work out something better for you and your loved ones! Yet this is when I get to be reminded once again why the sacrifice was made in the first place, so that being away from them would never have to happen again in the future. I tell myself why I made this move and hopefully this will carry me past this season of family time.
I have to face it; those dreadful Christmas blues have snuck up on me earlier than necessary. As if being unsettled is not enough to deal with, those inevitable tidal waves of homesickness still surge every now and then. Undoubtedly, it will strike the strongest come Christmas day.
It’s a shared fate -- that despite Christmas being a time for festivities and jovial spirits, it is also a time for strong negative emotions. Reflections on lost loved ones, knowing that we can’t afford the luxury of changing location overnight and thus miss out on family gatherings, or spending the holidays alone cause that self-inflicted torture of wallowing in misery. People are more vulnerable to depression during this season because emotions are more heightened. And I believe there are hundred others out there like me who just wish we could fast forward through the holidays; that the season would pass by like a blur.
It makes me pine more for my sister’s paella, my brother-in-law’s oven-baked chicken, and even though there’s always a flop in my baking, I would still miss making the frosting extra sweet so it will hopefully overpower the burned portions of my cake. And that’s just with the food. The heavier stuff is worse. Just thinking I could not get a Christmas hug from my nephews and niece is painful enough. Not to mention that I will not have the chance to remind my lola how lucky she is that she’s still very much alive to spend what would probably be her 102nd Christmas on earth.
I know. I should stop lest I would triple this self-imposed agony. Oh, the rigors and misery that comes with the hope to work out something better for you and your loved ones! Yet this is when I get to be reminded once again why the sacrifice was made in the first place, so that being away from them would never have to happen again in the future. I tell myself why I made this move and hopefully this will carry me past this season of family time.