HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

(FROM "A WEEKEND NOTE," THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE FRIDAY SPECIAL IN MANILA BULLETIN, 21 DEC 2007)

At Rustan’s Makati, it’s Christmas, as we knew it back when Santa was a pudgy old man in a red suit. Behind the department store’s holiday windows Christmas classics come alive, heralded by Santa on his reindeer-drawn sleigh, along with the Christmas fairies and the camels or what Feliz Lim of Rustan’s visual team described to me as “the majestic bearers of gifts.”

BLURB
Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore

Upon the prodding of the very gentle Nena Tantoco, Christmas decorations at Rustan’s simply aim to “reawaken the child in every person,” so that each window, indeed, is a portal back into traditional times, paved with childhood memories and everything we hold near and dear to our hearts, which is exactly what Christmas is all about.

After all, over the past decades, some “iconoclasts” have had many attempts to redefine Christmas, restyling Santa in a gilded suit, replacing his sleigh with some futuristic supercar, or making gold and black the chic alternative to the “usual” red and green. It’s tiring to have to fix what ain’t broken just to be different or just to go against the flow, which is why it’s quite heartwarming to see tradition making a grand comeback into our holiday décor.

This year, at Rustan’s and elsewhere, Christmas wears its traditional colors, although white and silver seem to dominate the holidayscape. The color scheme is still traditional anyway in the light of “I’m Dreaming of A White Christmas,” a sentiment that dates back to the beginning of our Great American Dream, which, at Christmas time, was poignantly expressed by our fantasies about the Snowman and snowflakes on our lashes.

That’s why, for me, who grew up before the Americans pulled out of the Philippines, a walk around Rustan’s Makati, now animated with symbols of Christmases past and abloom with poinsettias, is a walk back to the grander times of my childhood, grander because then my dreams were more vivid, more real, more mesmerizing and, well, they were powerful dreams, whereas now many of them, through no fault of their own and strictly on account of my jadedness, have become boring, everyday realities.

The window display at Rustan’s Makati, indeed, is among this season’s glad tidings, if only because lately it seems quite a challenge to imbibe the holiday spirit. The carols, mostly reinterpreted by pop stars, no longer seem as jolly or as whimsical. Some of them sound no different from today’s Top 40 hits.

I wish a modern-day carol would bring to life the same holiday feelings Chrissie Hynde’s version of “Have Yourself A Merry Christmas” used to stir up in me back in my youth. But then again, Chrissie Hynde’s soulful version was only also a cover of the 1944 classic, made for the MGM film Meet Me in St. Louis and immortalized by Judy Garland. I’m sure that in the ‘80s, when the Pretenders lead sang her version of this saddest, most haunting Christmas carol of all, some traditionalist must have also scoffed at dear old Chrissie for recreating a Garland original.

Well, maybe, I’m really getting older. But then again, young or old, who doesn’t want Christmas to be the same, if Christmas means happy, merry, jolly, fruitcake and all?

A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.