Kapihan sa Kanto

There's something objectionable about Santa Claus. He is just so... foreign. So incredibly unlike anything in the range of my memory and experience as a Filipino, so against everything that is natural to me, that I simply must object. I'll let the others pass: the Christmas tree, the foreign Christmas jingles that depict a life we know nothing of, the snow and icicles -- but Santa Claus is unforgivable.

So I'd like to register my complaint against all these Santa Claus hats, Santa Claus socks, Santa Claus dolls that come out on Christmas, spruced in among the glowing capiz parols, the strings and strings of Christmas lights, the bazaars and the shopping sprees for cheap toys. Santa Claus is terribly out of place in the Filipino Christmas -- he doesn't know what he's doing here among our great big clan reunions and eat-all-you-can videoke-style Christmas parties; no, not here where it's too hot to wear a red velvet suit and there are no chimneys.