“I wish you the best of BER, starting this month, BERy healthy, BERy happy, BERy rich, BERy young.”

Text message, received mid-September 03

For me this electronically signaled the beginning of our infamous long, drawn out holiday season that follow every Pinoy no matter where the diaspora has taken him. Once the months end with a “ber” rest assured the celebrations or preparations thereto has begun. Watch for these inevitable signs:

Jingle Polls

With elections just around the corner for the Philippines next year and the U.S. in ‘08 politics will certainly figure in gatherings this season.

I took some time to survey the holiday crowd with John Clarida last Wednesday.

“Tingnan mo ang mga tao dito, puro trabaho, halos walang politika”, observed the former  Pasay cop now employed at Grossinger Toyota, a car dealership in Skokie, a suburb just north of Chicago. “Hindi kagaya sa atin, puro politika, halos walang magawang trabaho”.

A short stocky figure in a mostly male white-dominated office Mang John has proven himself to be at par with the best of them moving around with the ease of a seasoned salesman, the glint of a gold law school college ring on his finger.

“Barack Obama is like Pacquiao, he still has to prove himself”, Mang John muses about the junior Democrat senator from Illinois who is currently being tossed up as a possible frontrunner in the 2008 presidential elections. Although impressed by his Harvard credentials and performance so far, Clarida thinks Obama is still too young to become chief executive of the United States.

Meanwhile Jean T.H. a retired bank executive from Mindanao, now living in Arkansas thinks Obama is “the man to watch”. She and husband Ron, an ex-Navy sailor support his views on domestic issues and foreign relations. As to affairs at home, Jean says “we need political maturity, let’s just leave it at that.”

Though far from scientific, these conversations indicate that the Pinoys’ interest in the political process is alive and well although not perceived as pressing.

Balikbayan boxes

If Santa’s reindeers go on strike us and our big boxes are to blame. I once heard of a lady who shipped liters of Coke and Sprite to her family. Asked why she bothered when the same beverages were available back home, she replied, “Iba ang lasa ng imported”. I know it defies logic but my own mother insists that the Centrum Silver I send her is more effective than ones bought there. Analyze that.

Thanksgiving Day

Forget Jacques and Julia, spare the gobbler, this is Philippine-style Thanksgiving - where beets are re-routed to chicken salads, stuffing includes lemongrass, apr’s dinner drinks come in stout brown bottles and leftovers become “paksiw” the morning after.

Phone cards

“Ding dong merrily” could just very well be “ka-ching!” to dealers of those ubiquitous prepaid cards. We don’t care if the other party is snoozing or that the landlord is snorting on the extension “the” Christmas call must go through. Others play mahjong, many shop, some people just have to talk. Or take pleasure in the recently discovered joys of text.

Caroling

Fortunately this tradition has survived even up North where Jack Frost cruelly nips at our brown noses. Unlike in the old country where your obligation ends with the dolling out of a few coins, our version has taken more social significance ranging from full blown fund raising parties to elaborately coordinated caravans. It does take logistics but that the take is in greenbacks doesn’t hurt either.

Parol, Atbp.

Much as we covet those colorful creations from Pampanga, only a few will have the financial wherewithal to afford them. The practical among us have adopted well and bought plastic lawn ornaments. The sentimental set up “Belens” on mantelpieces with socks for loved ones. Sentimental motorists hang iconographic stuffed bananas on their freezing windshields. And you will know those hardy souls who really go all out and buy real fir trees for Christmas - the dried needles show up when their loved ones open the balikabayan boxes months later.

Noche Buena

Drag the half-sleeping adolescents to the laden table, feed the yelping dog and play the Mabuhay Singers CD. It’s Noche Buena time! Midnight is when the Lord was born and the Filipino palate is awake. Never mind that the house smells like a Chinese restaurant, the just-unwrapped ionizer will take care of that.

Food, glorious food assuages the pangs of hunger and alleviates the homesickness. On Noche Buena all worries, caloric and otherwise are momentarily forgotten.

Dollar Daze

Catch Bus #22 along Clark Avenue in Chicago even in the bleakest of winter days and you’re bound to meet a shivering, dollar-bearing yet still grinning kababayan on the way to cash cathedral - the PNB remittance center. Somehow, even as parting with our hard-earned cash makes our parkas feel a teeny bit thinner the thought of having sent our obligation is comforting. Between gritting teeth I hum Irving Berlin’s “I’ve got your love to keep me warm”.

Kwitis-envy

Blame it on our bravado or the Chinese but the overseas Pinoy will make every effort to light up even a puny sparkler at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s. Barring that, we stare at fireworks on TV or “The Ball” dropping at Times Squares. Missing the loud reports we drown our lonely ears in karaoke sessions deep within the basements and away from cop-calling neighbors. Singing along “Bad boy, bad boy” sound apropos.

SAD

Apart from credit card and bank balances, this is one of the darker sides of the holidays. It’s called ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder” and it is disorienting. For a race so used to the sun, its absence not only makes us grow fonder, it depresses us. So, if you meet a morose kababayan after the fall equinox, be kind. He just hasn’t seen the light.

In a culture so spread out one can’t help but wonder the future of our people. Why did we leave? Will we lose our identity as we assimilate into other societies? Will these dilutions enhance our genetics? Are we ever going to get home?

I will not dissect these issues in my space. I won’t even try. Instead I will tell stories of how we have managed to survive this dispersion from my Midwestern vantage point. Tales abound of the Pinoy’s permutation, we being masters of adaptation of Darwinian caliber. Most are hilarious; others elicit a smirk but rarely a blank face. Hopefully these accounts will comfort us, that even as we find ourselves all over the map, we are still one with the rest even as we wander.

As we enter this season of timeless customs and reunions I wish all the best. May our days be merry and totally bright.

“US I See It”

ABF

Photo: Workers replace the Marshall Fields sign with the Macy’s logo at the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, Illinois marking the end of an era for this Chicago institution.

If your benefactor is from Chicago and your remittance was delayed right after Thanksgiving, it may have been derailed hereabouts.