DEAR Reader,
I hope you are warm, and holding on to life.
I hope you are feeling truly alive beyond the gifts, and presents, and
kindnesses, and the joyful Christmas songs that you hear.
I hope you are not stuck on Facebook gloating, or turning green with envy.
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It’s a crazy millennium we live in.
Everybody is so happy.So successful.So famous.So feeling-celebrity.So well
travelled.So eating healthy.So sexy.So hot.
So depressed.
It is actually depressing.
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I’m not posting anything special online this holiday season.
I’m so over the superficiality of celebrating Christmas.
For years now, I have been living the Christmas everyday lifestyle.
I keep my chosen charities.
I give a lot to special causes.
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I have been a good Christian.
I love people, and I always give good cheer.
I’m not dependent on Christmas bonus, or 13th (and 14th!) month pay to be kind
and generous to others.
I no longer need anything, so I don’t require Christmas gifts.
Please do not give me gifts!
Just give me a hug when we meet.
*
Please do not worry about giving gifts to others this Christmas.
I mean, if you have more than enough to last you until June 2020, go ahead,
knock yourself out.
But don’t impress people with gifts this Christmas.
Don’t even bother with new clothes, and shoes, and gadgets for yourself.
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If you are really rich (like me), you can buy yourself. Anything! At anytime!
It doesn’t have to be this season of Christmas sale, and discounts.
That is so cheap.
Buying things at a Christmas bargain. Ewww!
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But live a little.
And if you can, live a little for others.
Cook suman this Christmas, and give a small serving to three people:
1. Your neighbor (or if you think they won’t appreciate it, to a homeless
person).
2. Some worker like the postman, your child’s teacher, the street cleaner, the
Barangay Tanod. (I’d like to say a priest, but we all know that they get all
the goodies this season.)
3. The homeless, the homeless, the homeless! You know the type. Street people,
taong grasa, wandering strangers, beggars.
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Keep to the small serving like a platito. (The beggar could be counting
calories!)
This is just an exercise in Christian kindness.
In most likelihood, you will even fail.
Because you’d be embarrassed to give so little.
That’s what we have become after all the curated, and gloating, lives we’ve
seen on social media.
Even if we often read in the same social media truism posts like “No one is so
poor so as not able to give.”
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Very honestly, I don’t gift people who are richer than I.
Not even people who are not rich, but have the capacity to give me something in
return.
I don’t exchange gifts.
The idea is so cheap.
I’ll give you a watch so you can give me an iPhone?
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But I accept gifts.
I don’t want to.
But I don’t want to insult people’s efforts and generosity.
I accept gifts, and frankly tell people I don’t have gifts for them.
Or I just say, I don’t have a gift for you so I cannot receive your gift for
me.
Often, people would insist.
They don’t gift me again the next Christmas, of course.
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And I am fine with that.
Because I do not need anything that I can’t buy by myself (and buy anytime I
want!).
I give Christmas presents everyday.
But mostly observed in July, August, September, October when I am in the
Philippines.
I share Christian joy in prisons, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the aged.
No one can question my generosity towards the less fortunate.
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And I run an art and literary foundation for my philanthropy.
My foundation is not politically motivated.
I have no interest in politics.
My motivation is just pure love for literature, and the arts.
I am not a business, so it’s not like my philanthropy amounts for tax
deductions.
For me, it’s about the joy of giving and sharing.
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So even if you are not giving and sharing on the same level that I do, I want
you to experience the same joy of being generous and charitable.
This Christmas, remember the people in jails and prisons.
If you can, donate coffee in sachets. (Just be sure it’s coffee. You know what
“sachet” means in the drug war campaign that detained so many of our people.)
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It’s just coffee!
At P7 a sachet, your P1,000 can make 142 inmates happy. (Okay, maybe 108
inmates, and 34 jail officers including the warden.)
It’s so easy to feel good this Christmas.
Just give to people who can’t give back to you.
*
Do something crazy.
Give gifts of coffee to the Dumangas District Jail.
Look for Warden Alex Vega, or Jail Officer Anne Suede Espiritu.
Tell them an angel sent you.
Merry Christmas! (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
