Congratulations! You’ve made it this far and within a week Christmas Day will arrive. For our recent arrivals to Canada, it is hard to adjust to Christmas season being only a few days long or just the month of December, not like back home when the celebrating and preparations begin in September? That is a sacrifice we make with opportunities available here in Canada – we have a job, or several jobs, that occupy 40 hours or more of our week. In the Philippines, life revolves around social events and parties; here we can get more and do more, but we have to work to be able to do that. Some Filipinos believe that if you are too busy to spend your time with family and friends, it is not worth the sacrifice.

My Christmas wish for you is that you are able to concentrate on using your available time for family and friends and ignore media and commercial influences that are trying to make you think about shopping and sales. Visit old friends, make new ones, forgive those that have drifted away and celebrate the real reason for Christmas, and that is the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Don’t lower yourself to replacing HIM with an “X” and enjoy the freedom that Canada allows. Freedom of speech is practiced here. The more times you say MERRY CHRISTMAS!  the more the “Happy Holiday” people will give up. “Politically Correct” is just a few losers trying to tell us how we should talk.

Being a part of the Filipino community is so much fun here in Calgary! All year long we attend parties – Birthdays, Anniversaries, Christening and even a few questionable “reasons” for a group of 20-30 people to get together, just to yap and eat, eat, eat. Assuming that we make an extra effort to eat healthy and burn off any excess food, it can’t hurt us. For the month of December, the special event parties are replaced by Christmas parties and the fun continues. That is what life is all about. Good food, good company. Not material possessions that some people get just to make people think they are successful here in Canada. It is the close relationships we build with our brothers and sisters, those people who are there when we need them. Those easily offended ones that turn away because of some minor incident or misunderstanding and have stopped talking are not really friends anyway; they probably just want to use us for their own benefit. They will be lonely, will disappear from our lives, and will be forgotten.

The only reminder I have this month is the January 14, 2012 Grand Opening of the luxurious new Genesis Centre. There will be many important dignitaries in attendance that day and it will allow you a chance to look around and see what this new facility has to offer. With several major Festivals already confirmed for the Genesis Centre, it is going to be an awesome year!

Especially during this holiday season, again, I encourage you to reach out to those in need. Not those in need of food and other basic necessities, I mean those in need of friendship and company. You know what it is like when the ones you love are on the other side of the world. Together we can support each other until our family and friends are reunited.

Have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a safe, happy and prosperous New Year!

Steve