Reality check on the holiday season

By A. Suhandojo

JAKARTA (JP): "Holiday Season? Frankly my dear I don't give a damn." Part of that sentence is from a Scarlett O'Hara line when she wanted to get back together with her on-and-off husband Rhett Butler in the famous motion picture Gone with the Wind. But that was not the reason why I used the line as the lead in this article. The reason was because I felt that it could whole heartedly represent my personal sentiments toward the holiday season.

Being a single "brown" female, without a boyfriend, and as someone who is of modest means, the meaning of the expression "holiday season" in my personal dictionary refers to (1) Sleeping at home all day, just like the rest of the year, or (2) Sleeping all day at "only-God-knows-where-my-family-would-go-this-holiday- season". Of course those two options could not be considered as the most interesting way to spend the holiday.

Sometimes I wonder whether the holiday season still holds its true meaning of being the most magical time of the year, the time to give and to forgive. Today, the event seems merely to be used by the department stores and card publishers to make us -- the target market -- increase our expenditures on cards, clothes, perfumes and even trees, by 10 times more than our paychecks. In order to do that, they are willing to create 25-meter high Christmas trees with a TV as an ornament. I really did not get it: does that mean that TV sets look good on a tree, or should we buy another TV?

Besides being a perfect marketing strategy, the holiday season is still supposed to be fun. Full of days off, a "not so generous" year-end bonus, mistletoe, and most of all a romantic candle light New Year's Eve dinner as we approach the new millennium. The candle light is a precaution measure to face the possibility of having electricity failures at 00:00 on Jan. 1, 2000. We can never be sure about what will happen on that date. I really admire all the brave mothers to be, who plan on giving birth at that "questionable" moment, while some people say they will not even dare to use their ATM cards!

Approaching the age of 26 made me decide not to spend one second more of my holiday season in the old and boring way. This led to my struggle to try and spend my holiday in a "Y2K compliance -- they said" way, which of course, is not very expensive. This included a long list of options such as:

* Going to the dentist: "Doc, this is an emergency, I don't have a life, help!"

* Having a palm reader read my hands.

* Watching Dawson's Creek rerun on TPI. My favorite episode was the one where Pacey Witter impersonated Mel Gibson in Brave Heart, and YES I am a nerd.

* Writing this article.

Not much of a list I suppose, because by the end of the evening I had crossed out all of the options. But you should try that "palm-reading" thing. The old man that read my hands told me that I would get married next year. He knew it from the line between my thumb and my index finger, I never knew that those lines could be so powerful! If you are interested in his service, feel free to contact me.

Being a cyber-gal made me try to seek advice on this holiday season "mumbo jumbo" from Jeeves on ASK.com. ASK.com is a search engine that has the motto: "Answering millions of your questions." I nominated ASK.COM as the most "human" search engine on the net, because it allowed me to use questions instead of a clue word to find vital information from the Internet.

People's questions ranged from where to buy the fancy "Pokemon cards" to whether their loved one was their perfect match. You could ask anything! For example: If you would like to know where you can buy this season's hottest trend "tube" top, the site will link you to more than 243 online shops, from Bloomingdale's to "the-what?-Say-it-again" store. Estimated time to find the perfect tube top is about 47.5 hours. Thanks to the unlimited options we've got out there.

OK, back to my holiday problem. My question to Jeeves was as simple as this: "What should I do this holiday season, if I do not have either money or a boyfriend?" Jeeves answered my question by (1) Listing all the U.S. holiday dates; (2) Providing a nice tip on how to have a romantic dinner on Christmas Eve (without telling me how to get a partner first); (3) Advice on how to get the "life that I want" because he said it was definite that I did not have one.

Anyway, although I failed to find the perfect holiday plan, all the soul-searching made me realize that happiness is something that must be achieved in the here and now. Some might express this feeling later when they are becoming richer, thinking this will make them happier. Some might say that if they knew that their life was so miserable as they got older, they would have enjoyed their younger days more. So happiness is a present time need; you can always choose to be happy no matter what you do or who you are.

After a while, I at last began to consider myself to be quite fortunate. I could still enjoy my days in the not so fresh Jakarta air and a healthy body, with lovely parents to come home to. I could also whistle the Jingle bells tune on my way home as loud as I wanted to in this holiday season without getting "the look" from everybody. I might not have Pamela Anderson's figure, but men still offer me their seats whenever I have to stand in a bus.

My plan for this upcoming holiday season is to clean up my closet and donate all my one-size-too-small-and-I-hate-the-model clothes that I have had since I was in college. Well, at least I took a tiny part in the effort to make the world a better place to live in. My second best plan is still to watch the Dawson's Creek rerun on TPI. So for you all readers, cheers and enjoy the holiday!