It's Christmas time in the city ...

It's the middle of October and Christmas is in full swing! Where else in the world is the Christmas season celebrated when the 'ber' months start? Only in the Philippines. Christmas carols are played as early as September, and decorations mingle with Halloween costumes come October.

We will bring out our Christmas tree this coming weekend. That tree has an amusing story. A couple of years ago, I shopped for a tree at Landmark. I saw this perfect tree for the living room at a little over 5 feet. But when I went back with a friend that weekend, the tree of that size was sold-out! We then settled for the next height, at around 7 feet. I guesstimated the living room can accomodate such a tree.

So imagine our perplexed looks when the tip of the tree touched the ceiling. It was a couple of inches higher than the ceiling. IT gave us no other place to put the tree under the staircase, and it has stayed there for the past couple of Christmases.

I don't mind having that humongous tree now. The nice part is, every year, I get to buy new trinkets to hang and it seems the tree can't get enough of it. With all the balls and thingamajigs that I have bought the past couple of years, it look like there's still room for more.

The photo above was taken last year in Baguio City. It is a nice time to be in Baguio, with its cool, crisp Christmas air and lights all over the place. I feel lucky to have spent a lot of Christmases in such a homey city.

Working the assembly line

This is one of the busier activities that my team encounters in the last quarter of the year: Christmas giveaways! It might look like a lot of fun, but in reality, it's not a walk in the park. You have to think if it's something that the recipients (which are our clients) will like. And there are also certain classifications to the gifts. The request process for budget is also bloody (madugo!). Hehe. Hope my boss doesn't read this.

Anyways, when the gifts arrive, they aren't wrapped yet. So we convert our training room into an assembly line! Nagiging FW kami (Factory Worker) sa marketing department at may kasama kaming mga volunteers, ang aming mga lovable Marketing Assistants.

Actually medyo late na nga eh. These gifts should be ready for distribution by the last week of November. Hmmm... am I looking at another year of Christmas rushing? Ayoko na. When I did my Christmas rush last year, my credit card bills piled on top of each other. That is one trap I will never get myself into again.

Bowling for fun

Our company had a bowling competition a couple of weeks back. I belonged to the "Prison Orange" team. So here I was in my first ever bowling tournament. My first set score was 98. The second set was a measly 87. I saw the trend and gave up my slot for somebody else for the 3rd set. Smart move: my replacement fared better than I did.

But we eventually lost the tournament and did not make it to the semi-finals. We had fun though. Isn't this what it's all about?

Huh? The price is 10 grand!?! This should have been announced earlier! Grrrrr

PS In case you didn't notice, I'm a leftie. 'La lang :-)