It's my first Christmas to not receive anything from anyone of my ninongs and ninangs, many of whom are my mom's and dad's officemates. This sounds materialistic, but I love receiving things from them. It's saddening on my part, not to mention my sister and my brother are still young enough to receive lots of stuff from their respective ninongs and ninangs in the Christmases (if there's such a word) to come.

It's sad that we are all classically conditioned to have this materialistic spirit when the holidays come. When we were kids, we are given stimuli that we consider naturally pleasurable for our age back then when the Christmas season comes--lots of toys, money, new clothes, shoes and candies---that we learn to associate, or rather, think that Christmas is not Christmas without these things. This materialistic conditioning tends to yank the so-called "True Meaning of Christmas" from our developing brains as children, and so we carry this as we become adults. I have seen this in my little cousins (some of whom are my godchildren), and of course, in myself and in a lot of Scrooge-like adults on earth.

It's bad that we weren't counter-conditioned from this mentality by our parents, family members and ninongs and ninangs, but it's far worse that we have to do the counter-conditioning ourselves as we grow up.