christmas has never tarnished its childlike charm to me. and i always go into the season with the same feeling of wonder and excitement as when i was just waist-high and struggling to read the gift cards. now that i have been participating in the actual buying of gifts (and have been doing so for over ten years), it is even double the merriment that i am able to both open my gifts and watch people open the gifts i wrapped.
some females choose to post their wishlist online probably hoping some of them will materialize (meaning some friends and family will read the entry and buy the stuff) like a bridal registry. i have done it myself before here, and none of the things happened to cross my hands (well, i did get a pair of stella lunas after i wrote the entry, but they’re a different pair. so that doesn’t count). of course, i may have been shooting over my head there even with just three hundred thousand pesos (php300,000.00), but i could have at least bought robyn more books for her leap pad.
today, i am still hankering for a trip to japan and rimowa luggages to travel there with, but i’ll take my return ticket to the philippines and my cheap ass generic brand luggage if it means i can visit home and eat danggit again. nevertheless, i came into the christmas season with a mental wishlist much simpler, more tailor-fit to my current situation and more accessible than my imagination would warrant. but they by all means give the same sense of satisfaction, coupled with the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with being able to take part in another season of exchanging gifts. cheesy? you bet.
i chose not to post any sort of wishlist, despite my fascination with assembling lists. however, i will post some of the stuff i received. because these are some of the things that make up my wishlist and i’m happy-dappy like a little kid.
my favorite scent, 2008′s most awarded fragrance, daisy by marc jacobs. moderately old in designer fragrance years, but still my favorite. too bad i missed the limited edition edp (which strangely cost the same as the edt) by about three days from the when the last bottle was sold, but i’m very happy with it no less. i know fragrance is such a cliche gift, but i don’t think i will ever get tired of receiving them.
a woven raffia roxy fedora with shell, grosgrain ribbon and chain embellishments and…
…a black pinstripe quiksilver “mob” fedora with embroidered crest and same-fabric sash. i started to regain my thing for hats when we had to wait in the sydney airport for nearly seven hours en route to nadi last september. my husband bought me a white-and-black hat that looks like eva longoria‘s and then i remembered how i once really liked hats but the philippines just isn’t a country that exactly embraces the accessory whole-heartedly (unless you are a musician or an artist. which i neither am). now i’m back to liking and collecting them.
coincidentally, i wrote “toothbrush” in our grocery list, and look what i found under the tree! we’ve always meant to buy the oral b electronic toothbrush but thought it too expensive to clean teeth with, so i’m happy someone gave me and my husband a pair of these things.
books from two of my favorite humorists. when you are engulfed in flames by david sedaris and mere anarchy by woody allen. i believe all the hype. yes, they are all that.
ok, i don’t have the least liking for robert greene’s machiavellian laws on leadership and how many of my previous managers so full of themselves live by his books like religious fanatics, but i admit that i read them all the time. yeah, i do, so kill me for being cliche yet again. the very same way i read so many other political philosophies i heavily disagreed with but intensely admired for the thinking behind them (like hitler’s, for instance). collaborating with 50 cent, greene comes up with another set of leadership principles in the 50th law for me to read with intense pleasure then disagree with during discussions. because i’m silly like i just enjoy insecure guys defend their peer-pressured beliefs like they are defending themselves against murder.
the advanced 32-stitch electronic singer sewing machine! with a users guide that reads more like a computer textbook than a home ec training manual. while trying to prioritize things and making ends meet, my husband and i started talking about getting one and we’ve been playing around with figures like how much we have to pay every week or how much we should negotiate for a second-hand one (especially since all of a sudden one day i found that we have to pay every week for a new tv and stereo system on top of basic needs and utilities from a single-income household with an applying immigrant who hates cooking… me, in other words). then lo! i get a sewing machine as a christmas present from the folks! doesn’t the world just work in mysterious ways?
reviews on some of the items later.
hope everybody had a wonderful christmas!
