I love Christmas. It is actually part of my values. Today is my first Christmas away from home, especially away from my dear family and close friends, and from lovely kids (especially from my godchildren) for whom I enjoy preparing presents.
For 24 consecutive years since my birth, I have been accustomed to the lively atmosphere of Christmas season in the month of December. When it comes to celebrating Christmas, there is really no place like the Philippines. I’m trying to get over with the culture shock of observing the Christmas season in a non-Christian society. Now, I wonder how many more Christmases in the future I’ll be spending away from home.
For 24 consecutive years since my birth, I have been accustomed to the lively atmosphere of Christmas season in the month of December. When it comes to celebrating Christmas, there is really no place like the Philippines. I’m trying to get over with the culture shock of observing the Christmas season in a non-Christian society. Now, I wonder how many more Christmases in the future I’ll be spending away from home.
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Last week, I was in Singapore with two Filipino friends. At Orchard Road, on our last night in the city, I was teary-eyed watching kids and teens on one of the stages along the road singing Christmas songs. It just hit me that I miss Christmas in the Philippines. But I know that I also share this sentiment with millions of Filipinos around the world missing their families back home. It is sad to think of the contradictions and the seeming inhumanity in this reality. Overseas Filipino Workers send money to families in the Philippines to be able to ‘materially’ enjoy the celebration of the season. But we all know that the psychological and social pains in this contradictory relationship are just sealed and concealed. It also reduces the ideal of the ‘family’ into mere money-relations.
Studying Christmas as a cultural norm – a mode of regulation – within the general system of capitalism, is indeed one interesting intellectual endeavor for students of political economy. Another equally interesting endeavor would be to study the strategies of capital in appropriating surplus from culture in general and from cultural differentiation in particular. For example, capital has ways of extracting surplus from the observation of people on cultural holidays such as the Christmas of Christians and the Hari Raya of Muslims, in which practices of these occasions may vary in some ways from society to society within the capitalist geography, and hence promoting the principle of market choice.
Indeed, there is a need to bring ‘Christ’ back in Christmas because there is a terrible hunger for love in this uncaring world. Merry Christmas everyone!
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For regulation theorists of political economy, Christmas season is one of the modes of regulation that contributes to the stability of the regime of accumulation in the capitalist system. The season calls for consumerism – that is, for people to consume in proportion to what is produced. There is a tendency towards overproduction in this system of unregulated production. For capitalism to be stable, production and consumption must be in equilibrium, and class conflict must be regulated. This would involve increasing the purchasing power of the people. For advanced economies like Singapore in Southeast Asia, for instance, the system tends to be stable because of the high purchasing power of the workers. In the case of the Philippines, the billions of pesos of remittances sent by the over eight million OFWs during the Christmas season somehow contribute to the stability of the system. The remittances prop up the purchasing power of their beneficiaries. But of course, this structure is not without contradictions; it is still precarious and susceptible to class conflict between rich and poor especially in a plutocratic society such as the Philippines.
Studying Christmas as a cultural norm – a mode of regulation – within the general system of capitalism, is indeed one interesting intellectual endeavor for students of political economy. Another equally interesting endeavor would be to study the strategies of capital in appropriating surplus from culture in general and from cultural differentiation in particular. For example, capital has ways of extracting surplus from the observation of people on cultural holidays such as the Christmas of Christians and the Hari Raya of Muslims, in which practices of these occasions may vary in some ways from society to society within the capitalist geography, and hence promoting the principle of market choice.
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Yesterday, I sent Christmas e-cards to family and friends saying in general: ‘Merry Christmas Greetings from KL! This is my first time to spend Christmas away from home. It's sad. But it's not sad at all. Christmas is not about me anyway. It's about God. (",) My Christmas wishes for you are success, peace, happiness, love, good health, and more blessings. MARY Christmas!’.
Indeed, there is a need to bring ‘Christ’ back in Christmas because there is a terrible hunger for love in this uncaring world. Merry Christmas everyone!
1 comment:
Dear Bonn,
Thank you for sharing such reflective Christmas thoughts. :-) I really enjoyed reading them.
It's really true what you have to say about Christmas and its place in the capitalist system. Sad but true. In fact, the same can be said of all festivals and celebrations these days. We have lost the ability to celebrate something without having the desire to also buy something to celebrate with. Gone are the days of making homemade presents, writing love letters that say more than a bunch of red roses or a box of expensive chocolates.
I'm still trying not to get trapped within that mode of thinking but actually, it has to do with time as well and creativity. We don't have time to be creative, as my other half says, because we are too busy working our asses off to right the wrongs of society. Most of us though, are just too busy because we are working hard to maintain our jobs that give us the ability to afford the kind of lifestyle that can only be bought with hard cash.
Thank goodness for genuine friends--as corny as it may sound, there no charge for that. :-)
Merry Christmas!
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