Wednesday, December 24, 2008 Barrita: Blessed Christmas By Eddie O. Barrita Small Bites
“AREN'T we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa,” said Bart Simpson of “The Simpsons.”
Well Bart, you should know some of my friends didn’t forget.
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Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal urged the public to celebrate Christmas simply and not allow materialism to rule their minds.
But like it or not, Christmas spurs business that if Christmas did not exist it would have been necessary to invent it.
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He also urged the public to be kind to others in these difficult times and hope for a “blessed Christmas, a Christmas that can help both our body and soul, and not only ours but others as well.”
We should also help ourselves by not exploding firecrackers or firing guns indiscriminately so that our bodies will still be whole after Christmas.
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Times are indeed hard this Christmas.
In the US, comic Jay Leno said people are lining behind President George W. Bush to get free shoes.
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A friend told me he has grown tired of being surprised by the gifts he gets during exchanging of gifts in Christmas parties.
So, he did not open them anymore and let others be surprised by using the gifts in other Christmas parties.
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Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia slashed the extra cash gifts of Capitol employees from P14,000 to P12,000 after some employees responded to the announcement by chanting “pun-i pa, pun-i pa.”
I wonder how she would have reacted had the noisy employees chanted “dako ra na, dako ra na.”
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This paper’s editorial yesterday said there’s “no crisis of joy for the season” in the midst of the global economic crisis.
So enjoy your Christmas noche buena fare, be it however so humble, like pansit or native chicken stew cooked with green papayas and kamunggay leaves and flavored with lemon grass.
