Christmas Is Around The Corner

Today is December 14, 2009, it is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 17 days remaining until the end of the year. It is nine (9) days more before Christmas. People are busy about buying stuff in preparation of this coming holiday season. Family, relatives and friends will be gathering together to celebrate this once in a year holy event.

I remember when I was still a child, the happiest days of my life were my birthday, Christmas and New year. For obvious and common reasons for children and maybe some adults, too. In our country (Philippines), we are preparing for Christmas and New year as early as September because of the word "ber" (at the end of Septem) which means the coming succeeding months will all end in "ber" and, to us, that sounds pretty much of Christmas as it is celebrated in "DecemBER". We are so excited preparing early because we don't wanna miss something on our list like gift giving, to remind family and relatives to spend Christmas with us, friends to invite, god children (in tagalog-"inaanak"), the Christmas menu that will be served, Christmas decorations, our clothes to wear on that special day, listed activities/itineraries before Christmas, The nine Christmas dawn masses (in tagalog-simbang gabi: a Filipino tradition) and many more. Christmas is just around the corner.

I miss the way of celebrating Christmas with my family and relatives in the Philippines (the traditional way). This is my first Christmas here in Bangkok with my Sweetheart and I know in my heart that I will be happy to spend it with him. But, a part of me is sad because my first child, Nicole is there celebrating it in the Philippines with my maternal aunt. How I really miss her so much. I also misses my mom, sister and brother. There's nothing more that I can do than pray for them and someday we will see each other again.

Giving and exchanging gifts are part of Christmas gathering. Santa Claus is very famous to children. Social gathering is fun, food is great, the weather is cool, so many gifts to open, super cool Christmas carols and songs, too many food on the table... but let us not forget the reason for this very important season. Christmas is not only about Santa Claus, it is not about mere social gathering or tradition, it is not all about giving and receiving gifts... December 25 is THE BIRTH OF OUR DEAR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. We must not forget about HIM. Let's count our blessings and pray. Christmas is about giving unselfish love, forgiveness and asking for forgiveness, it is giving yourself to others by serving and loving others, our neighbors as Christian without even asking any in return.. which I strongly believe is the TRUE MEANING of Christmas.

Have yourself a loving and blessed Christmas!

Journey to Haven: Introduction to my blog :D

This is my first attempt to write a blog here at Blogger.com, but I have had experiences writing blogs in other sites (multiply, friendster & wordpress) and I am also fond of writing diaries or self journal to reflect or record my thoughts/ ideas, feelings and experiences dealing with life's many challenges during my childhood and teenage years. I even wrote poems about my life and experiences. They said I'm a very emotional, fearless, outspoken/tactless and generous person. I created this blog "Journey to Haven" to express myself about the journey in my life to haven... Haven for me is a shelter... a safe place or my sanctuary where I can gather all my thoughts and feelings whenever I am bored, feeling emotional (happy, sad, depressed, frustrated, etc). A holy place or space where I can write or say anything I want about an "interesting subject" (well... FOR ME). I am inspired by writing blogs because this is one way of retreat for me. Not only that I am inspired to write blogs, but I also would like to inspire people by reading them.

I feel so happy and blessed that I have so many things in life that I really love: a loving family, my love life, faithful and generous friends and above all God is my light. I'll take you to the journey of my life by writing blogs here to see the fun and adventure of my trip. I can say.. that Life indeed is like a journey where you can experience many ups and downs as you travel along the rocky road, happy and safe trip when you reach the smooth road and sometimes we will lost along the way that we don't know where to go or nowhere else to go so we got stranded and afraid to move on in our lives. But we must remember, "no pain, no gain". That is what life is all about... to face challenges.. without it we are meaningless. We are the captain of our own ship or a driver of our own vehicle. We should remember that for us not get LOST or LOST AGAIN, we need our "road map" which means or GOAL or PURPOSE in life without it we are always get lost and we will never reach our destination. There are road signs along the way, but a lot of times they are just guide and at times those road signs may trick you to go the wrong way where there's no alternate route... the dead end. If we get lost, just always think that "we are not perfect". Then, we must learn from our own mistakes so as to prevent from happening again. Life's challenges teach us to be strong, have faith, believe in ourselves, and many things we couldn't imagine... though most of the times, we need to learn from these challenges.. the hardest and painful way.

Here's three of my favorite inspirational quotes about challenges:

Challenges: we all have them. The difference is how we handle our challenges. To have less stress in your life - deal with your challenges!" Catherine Pulsifer

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." Dale Carnegie

“The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges.” Martin Luther King Jr.