(This is an obligatory 2009 Starbucks Planner post.)

Have you got your SB planner yet? Got mine about a week ago, and currently halfway through the second sticker card.

I’m not crazy about this year’s planners, I actually don’t dig the calendar’s experimental vertical format. But since about 5 or 6 years ago, collecting Starbucks stickers has become something like putting up Christmas trees in December. It’s irresistible, it’s tradition, it’s something you just have to do because hey, you go to Starbucks like, everyday, anyway.

Now what I’m really crazy about is Toffee Nut Latte. Ahh. Just saying its name out loud makes me crave. Up to now I still don’t understand why it’s available only during the Holidays. Then again, it’s a reason (one of the many) for me to look forward to this time of the year.

So forget all my sad thoughts about Christmas, there are just a lot of reasons to celebrate, and to be happy, and to be filled with hope whenever this time of the year comes by. (That’s a schizo moment right there, I’m preaching to myself, don’t mind me.)

I think I’m ready to face December now.

I totally blew it and ate my words, huh?

Well this I had to do! Call it QLC or hormones or holiday fever, whatever — I woke up this morning with my eyes set on one goal: Pull out that box containing last year’s Christmas decorations from one of the kitchen cupboards, and put up this little Christmas tree. I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet in the US, but I kinda feel that this Christmas season will pass by really quick and I just don’t want to miss out on it, is all.

So hi, it’s Christmas in Unit 507, come visit!

Truth is, I actually had fun doing this little activity of mine today. But I also have to admit.. I still think that Christmas comes with this unexplainable melancholy, no matter how I look at it. And if you’re in the mood for more confessions, I did shed a tear or two tonight, in the dark, once I switched on the twinkling lights and I was left with my thoughts, and memories of past Christmases and of things that I cannot anymore change.

But I wouldn’t bore you about with thoughts anymore. Coz I care about my reputation, and your insanity. So yeah, I think these photos will suffice. Besides, it’s almost 5:00 AM. Who blogs about sad things at 5:00AM anyway?

Not me.

(P.S. To everyone of you who worries that my house will catch fire anytime soon, please, find peace in knowing that I have fire extinguisher. And that I won’t fall asleep and/or leave the house with these light bulbs left switched on. Promise. )

Tonight I went home from a dinner date with my Mom and brother with two boxes of Christmas lights, yay. And please don’t point out how I just recently blogged (with full conviction) that Christmas lights are evil. I like contradicting myself sometimes.

Like now, because I’ve always wanted to do this, even before I saw Zooey Deschanel’s bed in (500) Days of Summer:

Aren’t they pretty? :) I think they look pretty on my vintage-wannabe bed (delivered last week from a department store sale). More reasons to stay in bed now, heh.

Tomorrow, I put up the Christmas tree. :D

(Oh hai, Mum, don’t worry, I’ll make sure to turn the lights off before I sleep, in case you’re worried that my bed would catch fire.)

For someone who works at home and does not need make-up on a daily basis (and who doesn’t know how to apply make-up, LOL), I spend an awful lot on cosmetics, especially within the last couple of months. In the past two weeks alone, I have splurged on trips to Beauty Bar, SM Department Store and Rustan’s, as well as tried some items from Mineraux. Now I’m left with a bunch of makeup, some of which should be enough to sustain me for the next couple months, some I just wanted to try and test but didn’t work, a couple I don’t need at all.

Here are the items from my recent make-up sprees that I’m going to keep: (1) MAC Studio Fix Fluid SPF 15 in NC35 (edited: selling this now) (2) MAC Holiday Collection’s 6 Sorceress Eye Shadows (looove it!), (3) Smashbox Eyelights in Smokebox, (4) Smashbox Photo Finish Color Correcting Foundation Primer, (5) L’oreal Mattifying Minerals Finishing Loose Powder in Natural 01, (6) L’oreal Mineral Blusher, (7) L’oreal Telescopic Clean Mascara, and (8) In2it 2-Way Foundation SPF 25 in Warm Beige.

Just thought I’d share, so you’ll somehow understand why I need to do this blog sale. Lol. I mean, come on, do the Math. :D

(more…)

Today they put up Christmas lights in our condominium’s lobby. And as I lingered in the lobby tonight on my way out to get coffee, I suddenly remembered my mom and how she shed a tear or two as we passed through rows of lanterns displayed along Ortigas extension a couple of weeks ago.

Christmas lights are evil. (I don’t know why I even thought of putting up those little light bulbs in my room.) They’re among the first indicators that Christmas is near, along with Christmas carols and the much-coveted Starbucks planners. And it’s sad, and torturous, to be reminded of Christmas.

Don’t you just think that Christmas is the saddest holiday ever? Or is it just me?

I think there’s something about it that makes people feel melancholy, inspite of the holiday rush and the shopping frenzy and the colorful wrappers and gifts. One picture of Christmas in my head includes children unwrapping their gifts in slow motion, while an old grey-haired woman sits by the Christmas tree smiling as her grandson opens his gifts. Kids run around with their new toys, couples kiss, mothers serve chicken salad, and little brother is by the phone whispering sweet nothings to the receiver; wrappers and ribbons and *cough* christmas lights are everywhere. And all of these happen at once in slow motion while “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” plays silently in the background.

Get the picture? It’s.. Sad. Like you just want it over and done with, get what I’m saying?

If I wasn’t blogging this thru my mobile phone, this is the part where I google and link back to that study that claims that suicide rates shoot up during the Christmas holidays, and maybe try to make sense out of this feeling I get whenever this time of the year comes by.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Christmas, and I acknowledge it to be the day in the year when we celebrate Christ’s birth, when we remember that salvation came to mankind in the form of the Father’s only Son.

And well, I love that I can spend nights like this with a good book while sipping Toffee Nut Latte, something you can’t do any other time of the year. (I just kinda wish they stop playing all sorts of versions of Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer already.)

It’s just that.. I really think that it’s the most melancholy of all the holidays, Christmas, and I’m kinda wondering if someone else feels the same way too.

Any other human being who feels the same way? Pls. Let me know. Let’s have coffee and be sad together. My treat. I need 5 more Starbucks stickers.

[Posting with my mobile phone]

My brother would often tease me that ever since University of the Philippines happened to my life, I became stubborn, and argumentative, and the worst kind of choleric. Of course I would disagree, and I would start arguing with him about why I thought he was wrong. Then again, that very act of disagreement would only make my brother laugh and say to my face, “See what you’re doing? Exactly what I’m talking about.”

But you know what — SO WHAT? Yes, I’m stubborn. Yes, I fight for what I know is right. Yes, I fight when I know I’m right. Yes, I fight. Period. And maybe U.P. did this to me, but seriously, I’m starting to be thankful for this person that U.P. made me to be. In U.P., I learned not only to feel, but to know what’s just and right, and to fight for it.

I hate to be dragging my alma mater to this very sudden outburst, and it sucks, I know right, because I made a vow to myself not to post anything typed out of the abundance of the heart because it would involve either (1) a lot of mush, or (2) issues with people that I’m not supposed to be talking about in public.

But I am sooo going to hit publish on this one and I’m not going to stop myself. And I sure hope that you would drop by this blog (because you’ve been stalking me anyway) and know that this one impulsive post is for you.

What I’m really trying to say is, I’m  first to admit fault when I know I’m wrong. But when I know that I’m being pushed to the wall and being treated unfairly, I shall fight back. You bet I will fight back.