With Love @ X'mas

It is the christmas season again, and love is all around. Whether it is just simple love to your family, platonic love for the friends who were there for the past year, or for that boy holding your hands through thick and thin, it is the time of the year to show appreciation all over again. i was shopping with jaime yesterday when it suddenly dawned upon me that so many of us actually do not have a quiet time set aside to think of what presents to buy for all the people. Usually we find ourselves especially susceptible to marketing moves targetting the "christmas crowd". daily products that used to be plain and simple are being packaged and sold off at ridiculous prices, jus because so many out there are willing to deceive themselves that "it is a nice present to give" when actually the real reason is "this is very presentable and i do not even have to spend time wrapping it myself!" Are you guilty of this yourself?

Listening to Jaime talk through her busy schedule, i know that she is not the only one who lives life to the FULLEST - indeed. I, for one, am equally guilty. Winnie is like this as well. and Bong. and Cong. jus to name a few... How many of us actually take time, slow down our lifestyle, and start loving one another? (This is beginning to sound cliched, but apparently every year the community needs someone to remind them this. and this year its my turn.) How can love find its way into our lives when we're rushing half the time - it can hardly even keep up even if it found us! For those of us who often have family dinners, keep to it. If u have a christmas dinner, be there. If we can only go on a hiatus from our busy schedule once a year, let it be now! let it be Christmas! If you have a loved one, call him/her now and arrange for dinner tonight! If you have a crush on someone, let him/her know! Nothing has to come out of it, spread the love,
it just makes the world a sweeter place to live in.

Write X'mas cards! it may be very taxing to write the cards when there's so many names. But this only serves to remind how lucky oneself is to have so many friends worthy of remembering! (while i'm at this, may i digress to say that those who got a christmas card from me LAST year shld know that i wrote those cards using my "sleep time" after my training hours using a torch and under my blanket because i was confined to the tight training of OCS! i nearly died writing them..) But somehow this year i dun feel as motivated ^_^ only wrote a few till date.

Do some community work! Its oft been said that christmas is the season of caring and sharing, but how many of us ACTUALLY do extend our care beyond our family and friends? It'd be nice if all of us can do a little for the less fortunate. But if community work is too intensive for your schedule, you might wanna consider simple donations. i know for a fact that there ARE people out there who dun really mind donating a bit of money to the less fortunate, but are generally NOT doing so because there seem to be a social faux pas that it is "Embarrassing" to do good things. For instance, when an old lady walks into the train, and many ppl wun mind giving up their seat, but choose to pretend to not see her because they feel it is embarrassing to let her have the seat and attract everyone else's attention. Or another instance when some people literally run away from the students doing flag-selling in town, not because they cant bear to part with a few dollars, but simply because these people doing community work are now being taken as "pest". Notwithstanding the NKF incident, which has now become a stigma for charitable organisations, most of the organisations ARE actually trying to help - for Goodness sake! Readers, if you are guilty of any of the above, its time to fill yourselves with the Christmas Spirit and start spreading Joy. It is CHRISTMAS. Because.


"the heart needs somewhere to flow to..."