Panama, even if it is the melting pot the gossip tells you it is, is a country very attached to its Christian/Catholic roots. Christmas, unlike most other holidays we celebrate, is not only an excuse to get drunk and do something stupid but it has an inherent sense of goodwill that’s pretty darn infectious; it catches you by surprise and, even though it’s easy to pass off the holiday as a product or consumerism, you can’t help but feel the mythical “holiday cheer” in spite of it all. December is a transitional month for us due to the fact that we’re getting out of our rainy season while walking into our summer season, which results into hot summer nights with twice the humidity and sporadic rain showers we’ve grown accustomed to for the past 4 months. If having to sleep with a fan pointing right at my balls wasn’t enough, having to go out and find small trinkets for your friends and loved ones in between the sea of shoppers waiting for the last minute to buy everything just as much as you did seems to be an exercise in futility. Now, Christmas is a wee bit different than most holidays given the fact that, as party prone as we are, we give the holiday much more importance than we do the other one. Take it away, wiki:

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It is characterized chiefly as a time for getting together with one’s family (quality family time), spreading goodwill, feasting, and exchanging presents. Although many of the traditions of Christmas (i.e. the Christmas tree) go back to pre-Christian times, Christmas combines the celebration of Jesus’ birth with various other traditions and customs, many of which were influenced by ancient winter festivals such as Yule and Saturnalia. Christmas traditions include the display of Nativity scenes and Christmas trees, the exchange of gifts and cards, and the arrival of Father Christmas (Santa Claus) on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day always falls on December 25. It is preceded by Christmas Eve on December 24, and in some countries, such as Canada,is followed by Boxing Day on December 26. Some Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on January 7, which corresponds to December 25 on the Julian calendar. December 25 as a birthdate for Jesus is merely traditional, and is not widely considered to be his actual date of birth, although many mistakenly believe to be so.The time of year does not correspond with the winter solstice which is on December 20 or 21.

Christmas is celebrated in most countries around the world, owing to the spread of Christianity and Western culture. Various local and regional Christmas traditions are still practiced.

We’ll get to those local and regional Christmas traditions in a minute. Right now I’m focusing my efforts on my lovable spot of land, and to begin I shall point your attention to our annual Christmas parade, usually taking place on the second weekend of December… I’d like to point something out before I continue, though: it seems to me that the more we get into the end of the year, the more seriously we take our holidays. Wouldn’t you agree? Debauchery runs rampant either way, but at least we have the common decency to get with the program and care about our fellow countrymen while we drink and sometimes go as far as to drink in their name. It’s not like we like to party… we do, but most of the time we do so with great intentions in mind. Anywho, the annual Christmas parade is an initiative that was put forth by our city’s mayor when he first took office 2 election terms ago as a way to spark internal tourism in the country; it would be a great opportunity for independent sellers to cash in on the holiday spirit and we all got a cute parade in return. This even would mark the end of our somewhat-short marching season which starts off in November. All of the city’s schools participate doing their best renditions of tunes both new and old, making the parade the place to be that weekend. Two of the city’s main streets are blocked off to make way for the parade and thousands upon thousands of people flock from all parts of the country to check out the proceedings. This ain’t no Macy’s Day parade, but you can’t help but appreciate the monumental effort everyone puts into it to make this thing special. Because I like you, I decided to spend some time over at the parade itself to see what had changed since the last one I went to (which ironically was the first one) and not much has changed: the city is practically paralyzed all throughout the afternoon and you’re just as prone to getting mugged and felt up like any other event like this. The beer’s cheap, street meat is of questionable origin but rather good (like the ratburgers in “Demolition Man,” I suppose) and if you take the necessary precautions before immersing yourself in this sea of people under a scorching-hot sun you’ll have yourself a great time. All of the major businesses and groups get together in order to provide a full-on car-and dance show that entices both young and old. Christmas itself is one we start celebrating on Christmas Eve, actually; it’s a Latin American tradition to wait X-Mas out just like you would New Year’s Day, making things a little bit more difficult for Santa Claus in terms of sneaking in and dropping the presents, but I have it on pretty good authority that even if we wait it out until midnight and there are not chimneys in the city he still manages to outsmart everyone. He’d pull the same trick for 12 years straight; we’d all go to my grandparents’ house and wait out Christmas Day over there, and when midnight struck we’d open our presents and have a good time checking the new stuff out and what not… when we got home, though, there would be a ridiculously huge present waiting for me under the tree, and no matter how much I’d try to outsmart the fat bastard he’d always manage a way to pull it off! Son of a bitch is good. There’s usually a dinner prior to the gift-unwrapping session where the family gets together and has turkey and ham. Hard dough bread with almond bits is also a must, along with champagne and other excuses to put on a few extra pounds. People are usually more forgiving during these holidays and even though we Panamanians still have some issues with trust and what not, Christmas softens our hearts as well as Mother’s Day does. The problems I might find here are the same ones I’d find in any society that celebrates the holiday… mainly with the commercialism that somewhat stains the whole thing for me. Stop… it’s wiki time:

Santa Claus is a variation of a Dutch folk tale based on the historical figure Saint Nicholas, a bishop from Myra in Asia Minor (the greater part of modern-day Turkey), who used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. His charity became legend when a man lost his fortune and found himself incapable of supporting his three daughters, who would not be able to find husbands as they lacked dowries. This man was going to give them over to a life of prostitution; however, St Nicholas provided them with gold, enabling them to retain their virginal virtues and marry.

This inspired figure of Sinterklaas, the subject of a major celebration in the Netherlands and Belgium, Germany (where his believed date of death, December 6, is celebrated the evening before on December 5), which in turn inspired both the myth and the name of Santa Claus. “Santa Claus” is actually a mispronunciation of the Dutch word “Sinterklaas” by the English settlers of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York). Whilst in those countries Saint Nicholas is celebrated as a distinct character with a religious touch separate from Christmas, Santa Claus is also making inroads as a symbol during the Christmas season.

Santa Claus is an example of folklore mythology. He now forms an important part of the Christmas tradition throughout the Western World and Japan and other parts of East Asia.

Conventionally, Santa Claus is portrayed as a kindly, round-bellied, merry, bespectacled white man in a red coat trimmed with white fur (perhaps remotely derived from the episcopal vestments of the original Bishop Nicholas), with a long white beard and green or white gloves. On Christmas Eve, he rides in his sleigh pulled by flying reindeer from house to house to give presents to children. To enter the house, Santa Claus comes down the chimney and exits through the fireplace. During the rest of the year he lives together with his wife Mrs. Claus and his elves manufacturing toys. Some modern depictions of Santa (often in advertising and popular entertainment) will show the elves and Santa’s workshop as more of a processing and distribution facility, ordering and receiving the toys from various toy manufacturers from across the world. His home is usually given as either the North Pole, in northern Canada, Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland, Drøbak in Norway, Dalecarlia in Sweden, or Greenland, depending on the tradition and country. Sometimes Santa’s home is in Caesarea when he is identified as Saint Basil. L. Frank Baum placed his home in The Laughing Valley of Hohaho. In the original Dutch tradition, Sinterklaas lives in Spain and is accompanied by a great number of black servants, called ‘Zwarte Pieten’, which means Black Petes.

Here I was starting to think Santa Claus was a creation made to sell Coca Cola. So, does Santa wear special Santa shorts and use a cooling system whenever he comes down here? I guess we’ll never know. All throughout the month of December the malls in the country are run over by thousands upon thousands of shoppers trying to get the best gifts for their family and loved ones; ironically, Christmas day is one of the slowest business days of the year and it showed! For X-mas i decided I’d pamper my mom by taking her out for Dim Sum and then later for some Italian food at the causeway while a small tornado thingy threated to rip the country in two for the nerve-wrecking 10 minutes it terrorized the populace. the streets were otherwise calm, with the usual weather of “one minute it’s sunny and great and then it’s like we’re being invaded by Shao Kahn and the forces of Outworld the next” reigning supreme. The curse that many people seem to go through during the holidays of feeling sorry for themselves and being introspective and what not hit yours truly as well, as it did many of my fellowship but my way of addressing these things is (apparently) to desperately find something else to entertain myself with until the storm passes and I see that things aren’t as bad as they really are… so I started making phone calls when I got home and one after the other they’d fall into seclusion. So, what did I end up doing Christmas night? Watched TV while sweating like a pig because of the piss-poor weather. To top it off, I happened to have caught “Love, Actually” on the tube… I was told I should watch it because it was a very nice movie so I did… in a way, I somewhat regret doing so but in many others I found it to be a very heartwarming and satisfying movie experience… you should watch it, if not for the awesome British twist on romantic ensemble comedy that works perfectly here, but because of the stuff one can pick out of it:

1. You tell the truth on Christmas: cute sentiment and something I wish more people here lived by. But it’s mostly because of my loathing for fear more than anything else. Because this flick happens in the movie world, the characters find much more inspiring ways to tell each other how they really feel and what they’re really thinking; if only we were this brave, nobody would have any kind of problems whatsoever. We’d all be happily ever after and all it’d take for me to tell the girl I love that I do, in fact, love her would be to learn how to play drums in three weeks and chase her down an airport’s duty free zone (totally possible occurrence, mind you… given enough vodka) but in reality people who are capable of doing things like these when they’re that much pushed into a corner are pretty much labeled as freaks. Welcome to the website, by the way; my name is Robert, and I am a charming, handsome freak.
2. There are many ways to love, and it is as selfish as it is selfless: So, here we go… the meat of this flick (and the sentiment itself) is how many faces it has and how subjective it is. The movie is like “Amores Perros” or “Crash” for the romantic comedy crowd and it just so happens to be populated by English people who passively and/or actively know each other, each one of them going through some sort of variation of love. Some lose, others win, and others even stay the same as when the flick started. I liked this exploration very much, and in many ways is what got me hooked to begin with. Everybody thinks they know what love is but it isn’t until someone else shows you it can be anything we want it to be that all arguments pretty much go to hell. My definition might vary from yours, or maybe you don’t even have one and are looking for the meaning of it all, so in the spirit of Christmas I’ll give you the gem I’ve found and happen to be experiencing: Love, for all its intents and purposes, is selfishness in being selfless. The feeling you have for another is yours to keep and cherish, and whatever you want to do with it is your choice. Time does not apply to this feeling because hours feel like days, days feel like weeks and the next thing you know, you feel like you’re a highlander from all the years you feel you’ve spent when it’s only been a month, you jackass. It makes you think and act stupid, but it also makes you discover how much more of you there is to unleash… and all of it comes from someone else who sees it in you. You would rip the sea in two and level mountains for this person who, unbeknown to him/her, move you and make you an infinite amount of times better than if you were on your own. Out of this selfish feeling you get to unleash such a reckless abandon in regards to the wellbeing of another. It drives you. Your world loses its concept of time, you feel delirious, crazy and with an utter lack of control over things that happen to you, all of it inside a convenient package you call your body. It’s the only way I can explain how people fall in love or their perspectives of the world around them change entirely with the arrival of their children… and of course, this little movie. You can say love is a lie all you want, but fuck you; it feels real to me.
3. Everything’s funnier when it’s British: I don’t know if it’s the insanely sarcastic humor or what, but if this movie were an American production I think I’d despise it. But then again, there’s some influx of American talent in the flick to do the crossover justice, specially Eliza Cuthbert and Shannon Elizabeth. God, those girls are hot as hell. If only we were in the 80’s again so I can enjoy a balls-to-the-wall funny movies made in the States… there are exceptions, though (”Super Troopers,” “Anchorman”) but they sure as hell don’t make them like “Caddyshack” anymore. In contrast? “Monthy Python.” “Alan Partridge.” “Spaced,” and while we’re at it, “Shaun of the Dead.” The list goes on and on, really.

With those thoughts lingering in the hallways of my mind I tried to go to sleep… eventually accomplishing doing so. I look around the blogosphere and many people are feeling the holiday blues, choosing seclusion as a means to spend the holidays. This isn’t as much Panamanian as it is universal; hopefully they’ll come back after New Year’s Day so we can get on with what we left undone in order to celebrate. It’s Christmas, and these are my gifts to you:

• The animation industry’s “50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time,” with video evidence
• Cats in Christmas hats
• Wii fangirl Leah
• A special tribute to James Brown (R.I.P, sex machine)

All videos blatantly ripped from GorillaMask.net. Gasp!

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