A Special Christmas

Can you imagine life without Christmas? As a Filipino here are some of the things we might miss....

1. Noche Buena.....sharing a decent meal or whatever we can afford with our families after attending a midnight mass at Christmas....

2. Simbang Gabi.....we usually have holy masses for nine days every night in preparation for Christmas....

3. Kris Kringle....sharing gifts with friends and family....

4. Christmas Carols....some civic organizations and young people visit and serenade homes with Christmas songs usually for a good cause.....

5. Pagmano sa Ninong at Ninang....Filipino tradition of receiving gifts from godparents....

6. Family reunions....the best time to be with our families.....

7. Lechon, queso de bola, bibingka, puto bumbong, kalamay and other finger foods abound...."busog talaga" to the max^^

8. Christmas lights, Christmas lanterns, Christmas trees could be found mostly in Filipino homes whether in rural or urban areas....almost anywhere.... on the streets, malls, etc....

9. Christmas shoppings, bargains are always available.....everyone is happy I guess^^.....

10. Lastly it's the best time to reconcile with family members and friends.....a time to humble ourselves.....

These are some of the wonderful things Christmas offer to us.....maybe some of them will be or might not be within our reach.....still I want Christmas to stay forever.....to be in our hearts always.....

to all of you......

The Spirit of BEAR-iuca

Please join me in this "bear-y "special meme.....
The Spirit of BEAR-iuca

-START COPYING HERE-

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a powerful Genie Princess named Mariuca who was known throughout the land as the friendliest, most popular blogger in the blogosphere kingdom. Adored and admired by international visitors and commentators from around the world, the Genie Princess travels the blogosphere on her magical flying carpet, always looking for ways to share her good fortune with others.

Over the past two years of blogging, Mariuca has met so many new people, from all walks of life and all over the world, each one bringing a little of their culture and lifestyle when they visit and comment on Mariuca’s two sites. So on her 2nd Blog Anniversary, Mariuca wanted to celebrate with all of her international blogosphere buddies by hosting a bear-naming contests at Wishing On A Falling Star and Mariuca’s Perfume Gallery and to pass her two lucky, cuddly teddy bears along to the winners who came up with the best names.

On the opposite side of the world, from the moment Roxy (the prolific Roxiticus Desperate Housewives blogger) and her sweet daughters London and Maddie saw the teddy in his personalized t-shirt and blue muffler at Wishing On A Falling Star, they knew that he needed to come to live with their family in Mendham, NJ. The three New Jersey girls named him immediately and burst into a wonderful song for BEAR-iuca:

BEAR-iuca, BEAR-iuca, amazing teddy cheer.
BEAR-iuca, BEAR-iuca, we’d love you to come live here!

Mariuca received 16 possible names for the Mariuca Teddy Bear, making it hard for the Genie Princess to choose just one…then Alakazam! A bolt of lightning delivered the perfect way to share BEAR-iuca’s good fortune to bloggers around the globe. While the soft, stuffed, cuddly BEAR-iuca is on his way to live with Roxy, London, Maddie and Rex in the Roxiticus Valley, the Spirit of BEAR-iuca is racing through the blogosphere to bring happiness, holiday cheer, and beary best wishes to everyone who welcomes him into their online home and passes along the BEAR-iuca good luck charm to ten friends.

Please play along with us by following a few important rules:

1. Add your site(s) to the list once you have received the Spirit of BEAR-iuca badge of teddy bear cheer.
2. Pass along the Spirit of BEAR-iuca and his cheery badge to as many people as you like.
3. Leave a comment HERE once you’ve passed on the Spirit of BEAR-iuca.
4. Once Roxy and the Genie Princess have visited your site to make sure your links are complete and proper, you will then be added to the Master List.
4. To ensure everyone receives equal link benefit, please UPDATE your list regularly!


BEAR-iuca LOVES

1. Mariuca 2. Roxiticus Desperate Housewives 3. Mariuca’s Perfume Gallery 4. Roxy’s Best Of... 5. Bay Head Blog 6. Roxiticus Best Blogs 7. Emila's Illustrated Blog 8. Metz - Empty Streets 9. The Spirit of Blogging 10. Speedcat Hollydale Page 11. Snapshot 12. purplefrogcat 13. Turn-u-Off 14. Simple Life 15. A Little Girl Talk 16. Life in the Lapadula House 17. Spicybugz World 18. The Mom With Brownies 19. Our High School Homeschool 20. Our Five Dangerous Boys 21. The Big Dog 22. LadyJava's Lounge 23. Moments of My Life 24. Life is too short to be ordinary 25. A Great Pleasure 26. Time Goes By 27. Life According To Me 28. Laketrees 29. This is a miracle 30. Porcelain Doll 31. Moms...CheckNyo 32. Wonderful Things In Life 33. Sweet Nothings 34. Hot Shit Form Here 35. Not Just a Mom Site 36. The Life of a Mom 37. Wiehanne Lounge 38. The Painted Veil 39. My Crossroads 40. Little Mermaid 41. LOVE's Haven 42. Also Mommy 43. The Journey 44. Comedy Plus 45. Making sense...(somehow) 46. The Modern Mom 47. Stay At Home Mom 48. Picture Clusters 49. Maiylah's Snippets 50. Sweety tots 51. My Discoveries 52. A Life to Remember 53. Rekha 54. Crissy's Haven 55. Crissy's Library 56. Crissy's Zone 57. Shopping Blog 58. Crafts and cooking 59. Asian Mutt International 60. A Simple Life 61. I AM KCAT 62. A Girl For All Status 63. Berry Blog 64. Carnation 65. Pinaymama's Diary 66. Life's sweets and spices 67. The Callalily Space 68. Butchay 69. Blessings in Life 70. Pinay Mommy Online 71. The Ruby Posts 72. Day Break 73. R...E...B...E...L?!? 74. VDAY CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY 75. Just the Tip of the Iceberg 76. Honeysweet Learning Center 77. Vsk8shop 78. A Diva's Hammer 79. Arlene - Joys in Life 80. Listening..Learning..Living 81. Mommy's Little Corner 82. Living one day at a time 83. Momhood Moments 84. SUPER INFO THAILAND 85. Life Ramblings 86. Samantha Ysabelle 87. Kikamz' Just About Anything 88. SigneSays 89. Normz 90. Mymy 91. Lynlyn 92. Your Caring Angels 93. In The Eyes Of The Beholder 94. dayfly 95. Night Clicks 96. Life is What We Make it 97. Dancing in Midlife Tune 98. Fida Abbott 99. Lofty Matters 100. Modus Vivendi 101. Aha Mama! 102. Anything Goes 103. Chopsticks 104. GAGAY 105. Straight from the Heart 106. Nizhama2 107. Daily Ramblings 101 108. Sjtl's Weblog 109. A Mother of Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow 110. Beautiful sOuL 111. At Pam's 112. YOU Next!

I am inviting all of you to join this fun tag^^

randy325.blogspot.com, everythingkimchiblogspot.com, joanjoyce.com/blog, buhaykorea.com, johnny-ong.blogspot.com, zr5.net, howto-livelovelife.blogspot.com, mckhoii.com, mymoods.net, successfaces.com, thecakechronicles.blogspot.com, masterzhong.blogspot.com, azurewolf.vox.com,i-am-alchemist.blogspot.com,conservativeweasel.blogspot.com

Life

How time flies so fast!.....I'm getting old already^^.....but still there are so many things to learn.....It's true that the more you learn the more you will realize that you need to learn more....The more you will realize that you are still innocent of the things around you.....that's what learning or acquiring knowledge and wisdom is....That's why we do not stop searching for answers to all our questions in life.....Even if you are already self sufficient still somehow you won't stop asking questions.....because of our imperfections we aren't yet satisfied.....There's is no point of satisfaction....we always reach for the top....and when we get to the top...what then?.....There is what we call the law of diminishing return.....the tendency for you is to go backwards.....you will slowly return to where you belong.....to where you have been.....We have the ups and downs of life.....How does it feel to be on top?.....Maybe when you are already at the top...it's gonna be too tough to raise one's head up......because when you are at the top the tendency is for you to look down.....I feel like God created us to humble ourselves in the end....whether we made it or not.....His real intention in creating us is to be like Him.....to humble ourselves despite the success we might have in this world.....

by prasangam

Jesus is Evergreen

According to a priest Jesus is like the evergreen....He is perennial and timeless....

So much is happening now in our world....The colors that we see vary....killings, threats, corruptions, immorality,  global economic crisis, etc....which all lead to only one color....the color of greed....but through it all....Jesus remains the color of hope....our only hope in this ever changing world....He remains the evergreen....

by..kluehirsch/Snowpine

Trusting my Savior.....

What are the things that we do when we are sick or suffering from pains?....In my case....I always offer whatever it is that I feel to God....Once I was confined in the hospital and it was my first time ever to be confined....I was already in my 30's then yet I acted like a child and I "texted" God and asked him to ease the pain that I was going through ....( I made some number combinations as if they are God's numbers^^.....and you know what?.....I was able to sleep soundly after I texted Him^^).....Just knowing that God loves us and knows how we feel means a lot to me already.....That was the reason why I felt so relieved inspite of the pain that I was going through.....

Many times I asked God why do we have to suffer from heartaches, poverty, injustice, wars, corruptions etc.....There are even those who had suffered much from what we had experienced.....And then we just stop complaining when those very people who suffered greatly than us would tell us how beautiful life is or how good God is to all of us.....In a way... in my humble experience,  I was able to appreciate God's love for me when He embraced me and forgave me for all the stupid things that I've done.....Maybe if I had not experienced those things I wouldn't have been a better person as I am today....though I think I am still struggling to be one......a true Christian.....

I had experienced crying almost every night.....but I had no regrets when those things had happened.....They happened because God wants me to humble myself.....to make me understand that He is my savior....the one hope that I needed in this world......

All the things that had happened to me were all forgiven by Him......God knows us better than anyone else in this world......Let's put our trust in Him.....Trust God and everything will be alright^^.......

Faith

It's gonna be 40 days to go before Christmas^^.....In the Philippines people get so excited and they make early preparations for it.....whether in schools, offices, shopping malls, markets, restaurants, hospitals, you will see Christmas decorations already to some as early as September....

There are also those who are into charitable acts when this season comes....Recently in our school....we had just been adopted by some foreign missionaries from the US and Canada....and even with our own kababayans....

It's really different when this season comes....Although some of us may have some personal hurts or problems  ... those things will be offset as we feel love and charity ruling the season....

Though there are some news that really saddens us like there are some kababayans and even other nationalities who lost their jobs in foreign countries because of global economic problems....and we know how badly they needed jobs in order to sustain their families....and the fact that Christmas is getting nearer.... but ofcourse we must not lose hope and trust God always....

I was also touched by what happened to my fellow teacher's Mom who had a stroke and suffered from loss of her memory and speech...It was really heartbreaking.....though I can see how strong her Mom is and how my co teacher dealt with this problem with so much faith.....I know they will be fine.....

There was also this news of a brave British teenager who refused to undergo heart transplant.....She reminded me of my late father who did the same thing....There are so many miracles that could happen or had happened in this world...We just have to understand what is going on to appreciate them....

And they blame each other^^.....

We had a sports fest yesterday in our district and one of the participants on the chess event happened to be a young 2nd grader who is just so smart that she was able to compete with other much older participants.....The young girl was with her coach and her mother .....but during the game itself the coach is not allowed to enter the room where the contest is going on......So there would be chances for the kids to set some rules for themselves when the proctor wouldn''t take a close look at them....So it happened that this young girl lost in one of the games because her other older opponent outsmarted her.....There was a ruling that there will be a 'touch move" during the game yet the older opponent did not follow the rules strictly....

So the young and honest girl lost.....After the game when she was already with her coach and her mother.....Her mother was upset and said....."Why didn't you tell the proctor that your opponent cheated during the game"......The young girl said...."I just gave her a chance to correct her moves so that she'll still have the chance to continue with the game because it's too early for her to lose".....Then the mother said....."It's your fault that you lost the game.....You are too kind!".....But the young girl replied......"Yes but don't blame me if I am kind.....It's your fault Mother because you are so kind too!^^".....

That was it and both just smiled at each other....Haha!... It was really heartwarming to hear both mother and daughter take things lightly during the sports fest yesterday^^.....

by m ender