Holiday blues

A Filipino selling balloons outside the International Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage in Antipolo. Filipinos are infamous for their long Christmas season, says the writer. — AP

FILIPINOS are infamous for their long Christmas season (recently acknowledged by Mariah Carey who teased that only Filipinos are allowed to play her timeless song All I Want For Christmas Is You before December). We celebrate it with a vengeance: streets festooned with colourful lights and lanterns; Christmas carols played loudly over crowds of shoppers in malls; song and dance numbers being rehearsed for the office parties.

At the same time, classic staples in our holiday playlists sing of loss and yearning, such as Pasko Na Sinta Ko and Miss Kita Kung Christmas. Family get-togethers now commonly feature group video calls with relatives who are overseas, unable to come home. It is not unusual for tears to fall during these bittersweet moments when, even as technology can now bring us together, it also reminds us acutely of how far apart we still are.