Christmas And New Year Celebrations Tend To Be Treated Like Recreational Drugs In The Philippines

Well it's just five days before Christmas and 12 days before the New Year, right? I remembered how I wrote a series of articles concerning Christmas and New Year celebrations in the Philippines. Now it's time to write my latest observation about how Christmas and New Year merrymaking in the Philippines is but a drug in the Philippines -- which can be connected to the misguided notion of happiness and wanting to be in an eternal state of bliss when such a notion is impossible in an imperfect world.

Nothing is wrong with celebrating Christmas and New Year. I don't think anything is wrong with giving pinaskohan -- what I'm against is the wrongful practice of extorting pinaskohan from other people. Nothing is wrong with having buying nice stuff during Christmas as well as celebrating on the eve before Christmas and New Year -- just make sure that you still have plenty of money to meet your needs such as paying electricity, water and rent by January!

I was thinking about the logic of why many of my fellow Filipinos just feel the "need" to have lavish celebrations. This is where things get skewed up. I heard that the Spaniards introduced fiestas as a way to distract Filipinos from the real issues. Today, I even hear the rationale from some Filipinos where they claim that having fiestas will help them have a good time and "forget their problems". The rationale is stupid for this reason -- what good will merrymaking do if it will only increase your problems in the long run? It's just like avoiding the problem now because it will make one unhappy never mind that sometimes you need to sacrifice a shallow moment of happiness for greater happiness later.

Is it me or is it been an ongoing trend of being "Filipino" to desire to be in an eternal state of bliss? Have an ongoing problem? The typical answer is to say, "Wala naman tayong magagawa diyan!" or "We can't do anything." Besides, when problems come it's very easy to look forward to Christmas and the New Year celebrations rather than face problems head-on whole year round so one can truly celebrate or at least have that time of the year to forget their problems. I even want to believe some of them wish it were Christmas everyday which would actually escalate problems than solve it -- it's because having Christmas everyday means daily feasting will make you super poor faster than you think.

What's even worse to think about treating Christmas and New Year celebrations like recreational drug is that many of these people are still stuck in poverty. It's just like poor people who would rather sniff shabu, rugby, cocaine or morphine all day to forget their poverty -- rather than to do something that would at least get them out of poverty. It's really something to see how some Filipinos have the tendency not to even consider how much money they will have left when they celebrate lavishly -- just like poor people who are drug addicts don't care about how much money they will have left after they indulge in their stupidity.

Then the question that's best to ask them is, "Now Christmas and New Year is over -- now what will you do?" Then I guess these people would rather still go back to their foolish ways all year round. They may again consider making several loans that they can't afford to pay (and hence resulting to their properties getting confiscated as a result) or whatever stupidity they can. What they can do instead is to really consider how to get out of poverty so they can celebrate the next Christmas and New Year without being financially burdened after it!