Wandering greetings in February

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Ever thought about that saying "better late than never?" Well, it definitely applies with this Christmas card.

I came home on a Friday night to find envelopes slid under my door. One of those envelopes has a statement about Christmas greeting. Say what, Christmas greeting in February?

From the envelope alone, I can tell that it came from World Vision but I was not expecting a Christmas greeting card in February. I was expecting a greeting card from my sponsored child last December but nothing came so I wondered if Word Vision stopped doing it. I used to receive them right before the year-end holidays kick in on the last week of December. What happened to World Vision this time?

I flipped the envelope and saw the date when it was posted. 22 11 2019. That is 22 November 2019. It has been said that parcels and postages are very much delayed during the Christmas and New Year season. But it took more than two months for the greeting card to reach Manila from Negros Occidental? The envelope is for air mail so maybe the card went overseas first before coming back... Yeah, I'm kidding myself.

I pulled the content out and a brochure fell. Solicitation for noche buena gift. Oh well, maybe I'll save it now for this coming December.

I finally got on to the greeting card. Season's greetings from the Philippines! Yeah, season's greetings from my country to me! Isn't that cool?

Kidding aside, the greeting card is for a foreign child sponsor. From what I observed, World Vision usually had two sets of greeting cards that they send out for Christmas season. One is for local sponsors and one is for foreigners. Mine could have been mistaken for the latter so I got such. It is also possible that mine really got out of the country before it came back. I wonder which part of the world it has traveled to before finding its way back home.

Okay, let's get into the main event. I mean, main point.

I opened the greeting card and came to this kid's drawing. Based on the previous greeting cards that I received, this is how World Vision produce their cards. It has pretext as guide for the sponsored children to have ideas on what to write to their sponsors. I wished my sponsored son wrote more about himself. It was eight years ago when I met him and his mother in Bacolod City. He was four years old back then. I don't really have any idea as to how he has grown up to this time. World Vision encourages sponsors to keep in touch with their beneficiaries but I always have excuses of being busy to write a letter to him. Literally write on paper, not on a PC monitor. I bet he could be as tall as I am now. Or maybe even taller.

I also receive periodic update from World Vision regarding my sponsored child's progress. And guess what? I don't even realize how periodic those were. I guess it came quarterly. Yes, that is how bad a child sponsor I have been and still is. Maybe it's about time to schedule another visit to them. And do a side-trip to Guimaras Island. 😆

The thought of visiting them again brought me back to eight years ago. I remember how Wilson was. He was the opposite of the four-yeal-old nieces and nephews I had. They were this playful and noisy kids. Wilson was not. He allowed me to carry him and even sat on my lap while we were having brunch.

I brought them to the grocery store then to the department store. After that, the mother was saying it is their first time to have something so grand. That is because, still according to her, they can not even afford grocery items worth Php 50.00 (less than US$1.00). Two bags of grocery items and few apparels for the kid were already so grand to them. I did not know what to say. I was just thankful that I was there.

The back of the greeting card has "facts" about how Filipinos celebrate Christmas. While it says we start celebrating in September, that is actually a trivia, mot a fact. People claim such because September is the start of -ber-months. Radio stations sensationalize that by playing Christmas sing as early as such month. That's cool. But I can not take it as fact.