Ban gift-giving?
My social life has been cut by 50 percent. Mostly I blame it on the traffic on EDSA and C-5. Other times that I’m not afraid to venture out of the house, my destination takes me along old-fashioned routes which I’m not about to divulge here, dear reader. Also, I’m more lucky than most as I don’t observe regular 8-5 office hours and irregular deadline slots.
Don’t believe people who say senior citizens can talk their way out of number coding. I hate having to beg and plead; besides, if your car is caught on CCTV you’ll have to report to MMDA and submit to penalties and ego-beating punishment. The secret is to avoid Makati in the daytime and BGC at all hours (if you can help it), whether for shopping or meeting up.
We who live in Quezon City are wise to fair-weather friends in Makati who expect us to survive the traffic and join them in their Ayala-Binay stronghold; whereas they would never give an inch to accept your invitation to drive north to QC. Not fair, not just!
Times like these require imagination. My first instinct is to propose a ban on gift-giving at
Christmas. In
Japan after the Emperor acknowledged defeat to the American Caesar, an edict was issued to prohibit giftgiving while the country reeled from the shame of losing the war and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Months before she passed, my friend EUS issued her own decree: “At our age, do we need to exchange gifts to prove how much we love each other?” Gift-giving is a very personal thing but it takes a lot out of the giver’s time, from guessing what gifts to choose for whom, wrapping them up at home or standing in line to wait for the store’s experts to do it for you, from delivery by messenger/driver to handing it over in person at the first chance of a party.
Time-saving tips should include buying in bulk, which is so prosaic; shopping online (what if the gift turns out to be a fraud?); gifting with cash (kids love this!) or gift certificates (if you feel like advertising your budget).
The more personal it gets, the more precious its message.