MEDIUM RARE 

Of course Tarlac’s Belenismo is the logical first stop for an exhilarating Christmas tour, but as not everybody has the means or the wheels, Metro Manila is another good place to start.

If London has their Harrods, we have Rustan’s, with branches in Makati, Quezon City Gateway, and Mandaluyong Shangri-La EDSA Plaza, each one appropriately dressed up. Rustan’s is a good substitute for fantasy island, and now here it is, blooming right on time for the season, all decked out in red tinsel and white “snow.” Its tree in Shangri-La is as red as Santa’s costume, the color exquisitely, delicately repeated in the store’s houseware section – a favorite spot for browsers – where delicate teapots, teacups and saucers on display proudly echo the theme color.

Speaking of which, the Manila Hotel lobby is decked out in that same color, a red as bright as lipstick and nail polish. Rachy Cuna has put together a collection of the farmer’s headgear, the “salakot,” painting them in bright red with some gilding in (fake) gold and adding wide swathes of fabric to link them. The motif is carried through to the coffeeshop — with a seating capacity of 600 — and there you see young and old preoccupied with taking pictures while eating.     

At SM North EDSA, the tree is so tall it almost touches the ceiling, a representation so photogenic everyone but everyone seems to be taking pictures, as if they were tourists and the subject of their cameras was Fujiyama in Japan and the Statue of Liberty in New York. What a delight to see how simple things like an artificial Christmas tree can bring such joy to children and even adults who have not been scarred by life’s daily grind.

I was about to say that as a pre-Christmas gift to yourself, you should watch Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal in “Conclave,” a movie so thoroughly enjoyable for its photogenic sweep and grandeur, drama without blood and villains. Unfortunately, show’s over, having completed its one-week run.

As times have changed, has going to the cinema gone out of fashion, too? There were fewer than 10 of us watching Fiennes and his sensitive acting in a movie set in one of the most secretive places in the world, the Vatican.