MEDIUM RARE

Now that Christmas has arrived – not finally, but initially, like an unexpected spontaneous combustion – we can say that the holiday wishes of Henry Lim Bon Liong, Joey Concepcion, and Sergio Ortiz-Luis have come true. Not to mention those of the millions of children, teens and twens and their elders who rushed to the malls, the parks and picnic grounds on the first day of independence (or Christmas) last Friday as if there were no tomorrow.

Let’s not drop our guard. In one day last week, Russia and Germany each reported more than 40,000 infections. Let’s not allow a surge to happen here; that should be everyone’s wish.

A boy was staring longingly at a Spider-man toy in the store when his mother tenderly reminded him, “We don’t have the budget yet, but if we wait Santa Claus will come on Christmas Eve with the toy.” Whether she said it to assure the boy or herself, or it was her way of making him believe in Santa, it sure feels like Christmas is in the air. As the song goes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Alert level 2 or 3, what does it matter except to the drivers of jeepneys and taxis and buses who are not adept at computing 70 percent of seats for their passengers?

The last quarter of the year has been reopened – open, Sesame! – and it couldn’t have come too soon. Ayala Ave. in Makati is the queen of lighted streets with her 2-km necklace of jewels patterned after the giant lanterns of Pampanga. This early, the real Pampanga parol (lanterns) are already an attraction for selfies and television cameras. In Bulacan, San Jose del Monte stole the thunder and lightning-like fireworks with a spectacular tree-lighting ceremony. In Tarlac, the province-wide Belenismo festival of manger scenes of the Holy Family was inaugurated last Friday, the same day the NCR was freed from strict quarantine rules.

A foreigner would look aghast at how mothers carrying their infant in their arms or pushing the baby in a stroller dared to brave the crowds in a shopping mall. It’s likely the foreigner does not realize that Christmas happening in November is already two months late by tradition. Maligayang Pasko!