Mendoza: Include senior citizens in your list, please?

Saturday, December 31, 2011

WHAT is Christmas? What is New Year?

Christmas is more of giving than receiving—giving to both kids and adults. In fact, it’d be ideal if we are equally generous to senior citizens as though they are kids themselves. Shin Paul Chan agrees.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

Better yet, give more to senior citizens than anybody else--as I did last Christmas, not to brag.

It’s not yet late in the day.

So, give some more?

A good deed is never late--as in giving a gift today, tomorrow and up to the end of January.

Not really material things all the time, although it would matter much if kids receive toys as Christmas presents.

There’s nothing more thrilling to a toddler than receiving his dream toy at Christmas. Or a particular wish for that matter.

Mine of so many years back remains fresh all this time: A guitar.

When it came—I was 15, and it was courtesy of my brother-in-law—I had the most indescribable feeling in the world.

I stopped borrowing our neighbor’s guitar and quickly tried to master all chords of Beatles songs, starting with “I Saw Her Standing There.”

While kids are thrilled no end receiving toys as a Christmas gift, nothing beats money as a present to our elderly. Better yet, money plus a non-money gift given to Lolo and Lola are treasures, memories, beyond compare.

Kids, too, although most of the time, the money goes to the kid’s parents. For sure, Mom & Dad will always have good use of the bounty for their kid’s welfare.

It’s New Year and we face it with hope--as always.

It’s painful, of course, to those who lost house and home, kith and kin, particularly to our flood-battered brethren in Mindanao.

Surely, their grief is deeper than the depths of the seven seas. No mourning is enough to ease the hurt, heal the wounds of death and devastation brought on by the Catastrophe of The Year.

Let’s pray for God’s grace and mercy on their behalf.

Every New Year is a time to welcome, if not invent, new resolutions. The list can be that long.

Not easy at all to fulfill them all. The trick is, just try and try until the next New Year comes along.

Just do it.

Happy New Year!

(alsol47@yahoo.com)