Starting 2007 right

In my sophomore year in law school, my Labor Law teacher asked our class what the rationale for holiday pay was. He was not able to coax the answer out of the person reciting. I remember him saying that a holiday is a time for reflecting on the day being celebrated. Since a worker is deprived of this opportunity to reflect if he is made to work on such a day, the law decrees that he be paid double if he works on a regular holiday.

I don't really know if workers actually reflect on the holiday being celebrated the way the people who crafted the holiday pay law thought they should. I personally value holidays because they allow me to spend more time with my family and to do things I should have done months (or years) ago. I have spent the recent holidays sorting out books, papers, magazines, knickknacks, trial calendars, and all kinds of junk that I have accumulated since I started working. I've changed jobs twice and the box from my first job remained unopened until this time. I'm halfway done (two more boxes from my last job need to be sorted) but I'm about ready to give up. Only the superstitious belief that one should not be cleaning on New Year's Day keeps me going. I have a Plan B though: If I don't finish by New Year's Eve, I will return the stuff back in the boxes and sort them when I'm in an organizing mood again. If Plan B succeeds, I should be done before 2007 ends. If I'm not, there is always Plan C.

In the course of my organizing, I found letters from my best friends, a five hundred peso bill inside an envelope and two copies of a book that I had always wanted to read. I also found old journals. I laughed when I read the entries for January. Except for a few specific items, the resolutions at the beginning of the past years remained the same: Lose weight, learn to put make-up on, read at least one good book every week, spend more time with my family and friends, and start an herb garden. Except for the gardening part which I did a few weeks ago, I will probably make the same list again this year.

I guess my grand plan to get rid of clutter before the New Year is being replicated in several households. There is something about the end of the year that is conducive to ambitious projects like this. In my case, it is the thought of starting the New Year with less baggage, in a very literal sense. Then again, it could be just plain superstition.

A lot of the superstitious beliefs I know are related to the New Year. For years, my family has prepared thirteen kinds of fruits on New Year's Eve. In recent times, this was specified to be 13 round fruits that are red, yellow or orange in color. We banged pots and pans at midnight. A neighbor told me to eat 13 grapes on New Year's Eve. She also believed that hanging grapes on the windows and near the doors attracted luck. We all know that wearing polka-dotted clothes means more money. So does putting 13 coins in one's pocket. Then there's the belief that how one spends New Year's Day determines how one will spend the rest of the year. This really scared me as a child. I imagined myself being sick for the remaining 364 days if I got sick on New Year's Day.

The popularity of Feng Shui has increased these New Year "rituals". My friend hangs pineapple décor because she was told that it symbolized prosperity. I read that one should eat fish, mushrooms, and sweet and sticky food because these symbolized prosperity too. I wonder though if these should be done during the Gregorian New Year and the Chinese New Year. I suppose there would be no harm in doing them twice (except perhaps in one's pocketbook). Besides, eating more fruits is always a good thing.

A tv report said that the latest SWS survey found that nine out of ten Filipinos are hopeful about 2007. Maybe I'm being naïve (it is election year, after all) but I belong to the hopeful group. To increase my chances of staying that way, however, I'm buying 13 round shaped fruits that are red, yellow or orange in color. I will skip the polka dots though.

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