After reading a book about a heavy material, I decided on something lightweight to read and Sandra Harper's Over the Holidays was just perfect! The story is set during the Christmas season in the US - and all its attendant stressors and pressures usually befitting the urban middle class Americans.
The book is a light read and something you can finish in a night or two. There should be enough interesting characters here that would fit perfectly in a Lifetime TV movie. Just enough tension and adultery and sex on the sly to have kept me interested in finishing.
However, I came up with some interesting observations as to how Christmas is celebrated here in the Philippines and in California, where the novel is set.
Number 1. There is virtually no mention of Christ! The characters in the book did not do any single religious thing or any thing that would have mentioned remembering Christ on his birthday! Not even a church scene or a scene near a manger.
This is in stark contrast with the extreme religious nature of celebrating Christmas here in the Philippines, with our 9-day novenas and early dawn masses and all those manger scenes and tableaux one can see from shopping malls to churches to homes. I was really relieved to find out that we Filipinos still put Christ in Christmas!
Number 2. I am shocked with the extreme emphasis on having to buy people expensive stuff on Christmas. Well, it also happens here in the Philippines, but the characters in the book were really fretting about what gift to give a certain person. They did not want to disappoint the person by giving the wrong gift! I am one of those persons who don't stress over the gifts I have to give people during Christmas, even to my own family.
The truth is, the time and support a person or a family member spends with me is gift enough which no material thing can ever equal. If they give, great. If they don't, it doesn't matter.
Number 3. I admit I also get stressed if I learn that some family members I don't really like would want to come over during the Christmas season. But in the book, the characters are really stressed by it! For me, I only invite those I am comfortable with. I am not very good at faking it especially if I don't like or am not comfortable with certain relatives.
Well, I loved that the book featured how Christmas is celebrated in both the East and the West coast of the US. For someone who lives in a tropical country and who has never celebrated a white Christmas, it was such an eye opener!
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