RLS-Christmas

I know in the US, the holiday preparations for each holiday begin RIDICULOUSLY early. There are Halloween decorations sold next to back-to-school deals, and Valentine's Day preparations begin once that ball finishes dropping on New Year's Day. However, the Philippines, for me, has taken this to a new level. Perhaps because the country is 90% or so Christian, and the separation of church and state is a somewhat blurred line, Christmas is a big deal here. I mean, it's a big deal in most of the Western world, but this is absurd. Around the second or third week we had been here, in SEPTEMBER, Cobbie and Dessa said "this is around when Christmas season starts". It's not something I'm not too unaccustomed to because of the early beginnings in the USA, like I said, but it is disconcerting to be walking through the supermarket in Manila on Oct 5 and hear a slow, crooning "Silent Night" over the loudspeakers. In every market, Christmas lights and decorations are being sold, and there are random gift-wrapping stations popping up downtown. As I sit in my kitchen writing this, I can hear some slow Christmas tunes wafting through the open screen door (which may or may not be what reminded me to write this post).

The early thing is shocking enough for me, but since Halloween and Thanksgiving are not nearly as big a celebration here, if at all, I guess there are less holiday speed bumps on the road to the big Winter holidays. But most disconcerting thing is the weather. I've always equated Christmas with roaring fires, candles in the window, bare trees, snow, winter coats and sweaters, seeing your breath outside. Yesterday, I sat in a park, in the 90 degree heat, next to a few palm trees, near some very naked children playing in a water fountain (child nudity here is about as common as palm trees, actually, which is to say very. I almost had a naked child pee on my foot earlier this week 3 doors down form my apartment). The combination of the time of year and the weather just has me shocked that I can keep it together whenever I walk in a mall and here Elvis's "Blue Christmas" or see someone dressed as Santa in a market (what was he thinking? he must have been sweating bullets!). But I'm getting over it...slowly.