She doesn't think like me!

Christmas has just gone like a gust of wind. You anticipate it for a long time,celebrate for a day and suddenly you realize it's all over.

I don't enjoy Christmas like I used to. My enjoyment of Christmas can be divided into different stages. First, when I was a kid. I enjoyed it a lot because I believed there was a Santa Claus. I was very gullible. I believed him until I was in grade four when my parents confirmed that it was my father who was giving the gifts. Actually, I had already been told there was no Santa Claus by friends when I was about three years old. It is still very clear to me. It's one of those things you just can't keep out of your mind. I remember that when I confronted my father, he told me that Santa would be very angry with me for not believing in him. And true enough, when Christmas came, there was no Santa gift by the tree! (they always appear inside the tree! (My family used to build a tree made up of thread wound at the top and at the edges, which they decorated with white paper wraps and Christmas balls, tinsels and lights!) My gift came at New Year's Eve when my dad came home. He said since Santa didn't give me a gift that year, he decided to buy me a present instead so that I wouln't envy my friends who had been "good boys" and were rewarded. I was a sucker from that time on. So, every year, I would eagerly await christmas, be a good boy, and wait for my gift from Santa Claus. This I did until I was in grade four. Christmas after that had changed. It was not as exciting as it was anymore.

Then, I got married and had children. I started the same tradition and revealed to them who Santa was until they were in grade four! This year, a few days before Christmas, I was talking with my daughter, Kim. We were kind of reminscing about our past Christmases and yes, Santa Claus. She laughingly revealed to me that she knew it even a lot earlier than when revelation came. I asked how did she know? She narrated to me a funny story. There was a time when she was playing outside the house when a kid demanded from his mother where Santa's gift was and the mother replied, "Nasa palengke pa!" (It's still in the market!) When she saw the mother arrive from the market, she excitedly called her son and shouted, "Eto na, eto na gift sa yo ni santa! ("Here it is, here's Santa's gift" -- Some parents just couldn't contain themselves. haha) Then she told me that She said she had also been comparing Santa's gifts with her friends and wondered how come Santa's gifts would seem to be according to the parents' station in life. The poorer ones would get cheap gifts while the richer ones get more expensive ones. Hmmm, why were my thought processes didn't work like that before, I wonder? I know she's not just pulling my leg for she's just like this. Remember when she was in the lower grades? Read this

Now that the kids are all in their teens, Christmas is at a standstill for me. Yes, it's Christmas, we have a two week respite from work, attend parties here and there, wrap gifts for friends but that's it. The next phase, which I am not so keen on arriving just yet, is when my kids have kids of their own and we would all gang up on them to tell them to be good for Santa's coming to town! I hope that's still a long time coming. I feel I haven't enjoyed my kids enough.