Common, Irritating Habits Prevalent During The Philippines' Christmas Season

Yes Christmas is in the air and who's not excited as today is the first day of December? Maybe many are because of the Christmas bonuses, get together parties, incoming gifts, some may even be thinking of what to give to people they love and that feeling of Christmas is in the air. Yet Christmas is not exactly all that wonderful especially when you've got a lot of bad habits going on. Now it's time to talk about common, irritating bad habits prevalent during the Christmas season in the Philippines. 

Overspending during the Christmas season

It's no secret that Filipinos can be unfairly generalized to be overspenders. The typical spending habit is where overspending is the norm and saving money for the rainy day is viewed to be very "un-Filipino". But there's nothing "un-Filipino" about saving money for a rainy day. The problem is that many people tend to bite more than they could chew by borrowing tons of money so they could overspend. This overspending can take form in giving the "obligatory" Christmas bundles or Pinaskohan and extravagant parties. I guess they think their parties can't be "Filipino" unless they were extravagant never mind it's full of foreign influence. 

Asking for Pinaskohan from friends and relatives

When it's Christmas, one can think only about the Pinaskohan package right? Nothing is wrong with giving them but asking for them is another story. I don't think anything is wrong with giving them to one's customers and employees. Sometimes, it can take in the form of a blowout for one's employees. Asking for them is another story. This is the issue where people are inconsiderate towards the person's income. They are only thinking about themselves and worse, if they don't get it they will call other person to be selfish never mind they're the ones who are calling the kettle black.

Having noisy parties that will disturb the neighborhood

Is it me or is it really already an "inseparable" part of the Filipino Christmas celebration to have a noisy party? Part of my experience in the past is having people who play the music at the loudest, sing karaoke at the top of their voices and their parties can go beyond 12:00 midnight never mind some people need their beauty sleep. If they want to defend it as part of nationalism I should even remind them that karaoke is a Japanese invention and that the equipment they're using are all born out of foreign influence.

Asking for leniency from authorities 

It's really the norm to break simple guidelines huh? I meet people who think that the authorities should be more lenient because it's Christmas. Jaywalking? They'd probably ask the traffic enforcer not to fine them at all. Skipping classes? They'd probably ask the teacher to give them a perfect score for a test they missed because a hot movie star came to town. Others may also want to avoid paying money they owe others such as their outstanding credit, past due bills, and unpaid rent - never mind that the people asking for them need that money to keep their businesses running. 

Not considering the difficulty of OFWs in sending them money

I guess this should be special mention since it's already common to have OFW families usually remaining poor in spite of their huge remittances. The OFWs send money and the relatives squander it. Worse, you have the Christmas scenario where OFW relatives are working to the bone all the while those accepting remittances are wasting the money sent to them during Christmas. They just take the money for granted never mind that those OFW relatives can't even be home for Christmas thanks to the 1987 Constitution.