Calaidescope World

What Do You Want For Christmas?

They say that Christmas is the most magical time of the year. Yes, because my money magically disappears!

I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping. Getting gifts for my sisters is easy - they usually tell me what they want and I just go get them if I can find them. Bianca, she of highly evolved administrative skills but surprisingly low Holiday EQ, already opened her gifts (I don't know, I just enjoy opening gifts on Christmas Eve, so I wait. She doesn't). I never got to wrap Alia's. She just picked it out and used it right away. I don't always get to send Julia anything, but I hope she likes what I picked out for her this year (Note to Julia: Tito Dennis is bringing it to Papa's place this weekend).

I'm really excited about the lightsabers I got for my godsons (I should've gotten one for myself). And this morbidly funny toy I bought for Layla. I'm also going back to St. Rita's Orphanage with books, clothes, toiletries and toys for the kids on the 23rd (my "in lieu of individual gifts, I'm making a donation in your name" gift). That's going to be so cool! Then I'm going to Singapore for work next week and hope to find something for my Mom while I'm there (she's the only one I haven't gotten anything for! It's hard to shop for her, you know).

But what about my office Kris Kringle? Every Christmas, my company has holds a Kris Kringle, and to make things more "exciting", someone from the IT Team made a program that randomly assigns you a "sexy starlet" name and then selects your "baby" (also using a "sexy startlet" name). It's one big guessing game. I know who "I" am. I have no idea which bold actress my "baby" is. I'm so out of it (or above it. Hahaha!). Of course, I will find out which officemate is my "baby" at this Friday's Christmas party, but will someone please tell me whose name that is (sorry, can't post it here. Not supposed to say, you know. I will blog again this weekend when the whole thing has been "revealed"). There's also a prize for whoever can guess who his/her "parent" is. Yeah, right. That would be easy if we came up with our own bold star names or if our other officemates made them up for us. We didn't do it for a Kris Kringle, but we did come up with a list of "Beverage Beauties" back in my Comp and Ben Assistant days - "Mirinda Abada", "Sun-glo Raymundo", "Cali Calilung" and "Mountain Dewmol". Although I've always been of the opinion that "Ica Arcangel", "Xandra Barretto", "Rhea Reyes", "Bianco Adriatico", "Carlo Magno" and "Bonnie Bryan" are naturally legitimate starlet/boylet names. So is "Carla Zobel de Ayala". Hahaha!

In any case, to help "facilitate" the gift selection process, the Christmas Committee posted a huge poster on the wall - a Christmas Wish List - with 3 very important things:
(1) The names of the actors/actresses in the Kris Kringle program;
(2) A picture of each actor/actress (I saw the picture of my "baby". I still have no idea who that woman is); and
(3) A space for you to write what you (the actor/actress) want for Christmas that's worth at least Php300.

First of all, I don't know how I'm going to sneak into the office pantry (where the Christmas Wish List is posted) to write down what I want. Second, although I can very easily change my penmanship, it's kinda hard to write on a wall and in that small space assigned to me. And more importantly, what do I want that's at least Php300? My "baby" hasn't written her wish on the poster either. Bahala na what I'm going to get her. If you, dear reader, work in my office and think you know MY bold star name, I want a copy of Carlo Vergara's hilarious ZSA ZSA ZATURNA graphic novel from either Power Books in the Greenbelt Walkway or Fully Booked in Rockwell. It's actually less than Php300, and I don't mind that it's relatively cheap because it looks darn expensive (fantastic artwork, nice paper). It is my attempt to learn "swardspeak". If anyone out there want to know what else I want for Christmas, there's Neil Gaiman's ANANSI BOYS, WEIGHT by Jeanette Winterson, THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C. S. Lewis, and/or an original DVD of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS VOLUME 2. Thank you very much =) Max just wants new toys and treats =D

Now, my company also has a "Decorate Your Quadrant" contest. Obviously, the goal is to have the best looking work area using whatever "junk" you can find. So this is part of what my quadrant did (picture taken by Ice).


It's supposed to be a Winter Wonderland and we were all asked to come to work in white for the judging. I haven't gotten pictures of the snowflakes that my other officemates made. All I did was supply the plastic for the snowman, the glow-in-the-dark paint (which doesn't really work), and some of the scratch paper.

One of the quadrants in our other office downstairs has supposed children's letters to Santa Claus posted on the walls. Having believed in Santa Claus as a child (and yes, I really used to write to "him"), I was curious to see what the twist was. This one is my favorite (picture taken by Jerome).



There are some things that Santa can't give. For everything else, there's MasterCard! Happy Holidays!

posted by Calai @ 5:09 PM