I'm still hung-over from the Christmas holidays so allow me to boastfully enumerate the gifts my family and I exchanged this Christmas! I got Mamu - a huge bag for her school stuff (she's a professor in UPLB), Dadio - ankle length socks (so he'd stop wearing his calf-length brown office socks to badminton night), Manang Jesselle and Kuya Ogie - a tube of shuttlecocks (they're level A badminton players), Nikko, Jhofer and Auntie Ferns - pretty slippers each (in lieu of Nikko's neon green and silver ones), and Mike - a pair of baseball gloves (we love playing catch at the Baker Field in UPLB, but my ratty old gloves gave out months ago).
My gifts were traditional and, well, within a student's budget. In contrast, the gifts my (employed!) loved ones gave were thus: Mamu got Dadio "Magic Sing", Manang Jesselle got Kuya Ogie a pricey watch, Kuya Ogie got Manang Jesselle a China-made dual-sim cell phone branded "Hug, Always Beside You" (with camera, mp3, organizers, etc.), and Mike got me a polaroid camera with 2 films, 10 shots each.
So came gift-giving time, I felt pretty cheap having gotten my loved ones such simple gifts that don't require battery. It really felt like the theme this Christmas was "Give Each Other Something Techy". I wonder if Santa's big red sack has also become "technofied"? Does he now put digi cams and cell phones in the good kids' Christmas socks? Maybe if you're really really good this year, he'll get you a Mac Book!
And it's not just Christmas that got that way! A lady friend of mine gave her boyfriend 20 hours of free gaming time at his favorite computer shop as a birthday gift. I know of some guy who gave the girl he was courting a PSP. And I heard that in some parties, the traditional "pabitin" had USBs instead of candies and toys as the stuff "na naka-bitin" on the bamboo thingy! Are the days of giving the "walang kamatayang" picture frame as gift now gone? Will my future son's ninong get him an iPod when he gets christened? (Although I certainly wouldn't mind a credit card which the ninong will pay for.)
But I suppose this is another change that this technological revolution has made in our culture. And come to think of it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it! Because for as long they are given in the spirit of Christmas, the gifts we give, whether techy or old school, are perfect. As always, it's the thought that counts.
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