christmas rush

I am so freakin’ tired and broke. It’s my second straight night of Christmas power shopping, of trying to strike out as many names possible on my gift-giving list, of squeezing past the sticky crowd in the night market or breezing through the thousand square meters of a high-end department store.

Last night, I went to one of the country’s long-running and most visited night markets. Greenhills is your haven (or hell, when the crowd thickens) of product knock-offs, novel trinkets, and other Christmas finds, great ones or otherwise. This was where I bought gifts for my godchildren (god that makes me sound so old) and people at the office outside my division that I usually work with. Now that place is really one helluva shopping challenge, good thing that there is a nightly Animatronix show which keeps the shoppers entertained. A huge overhead stage comes alive with a carnival and moving mannequin characters in giant proportions. It’s like Las Vegas, what with all the laser and sound spectacle unfolding. A Christmas train bedecked with a gazillion colorful lights even goes around the stage every 15 minutes or so. I remember looking forward to and watching this yearly production when I was younger. It was staged in its original location though, the now defunct department store COD.

Tonight, I bought gifts for my parents and my nieces, which were of course more special and well, expensive. But I didn’t mind; I didn’t put my budget to a minimum. I got my dad this nice looking belt with an expensively-looking (not necessarily too expensively pricey) hide. My dad’s into belts, really. Every time we go abroad, he’d horde belts and belts. From military looking ones to leather belts. As for my mom, I got her two bracelets – one Victorian-looking, and the other a funky string of turquoise beads, glass charms, and miniature balls of yarn or some sort of fabric thread. For my nieces, it’s Barbie Barbie Barbie, one’s Princess Annika of the Magic of Pegasus with her glowing wand, the other’s Crystal of Fairytopia with her glowing body and “snap-on wings and styles”. The things kids want these days. Or more proper, the stuff companies manufacture these days to lure kids and burn holes in their parent’s pockets. I remember being all gleeful with plastic character figures or rattling guns or at once, the lowly brick game. Well I guess whatever the time frame is, it’s all about giving glow into the eyes of the kids and making them happy.

I guess things have changed for me, too. While I was once happy with a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, an Archie/Jughead comic book or a Bioman (and a slew of Japanese-TV-of-yore) action figure, what I want for this year is the new iPod Video with a 30GB capacity, in sleek black. Now that would surely bring glow into my eyes – and aural orgasm to my ears. Ho ho ho!