Christmas won’t be the same without you… I’ll be home for Christmas… Ang Disyembre ko ay malungkot… One of these lines could be the line that you wish you don’t hear on Christmas day, as it adds up loneliness rather homesickness every time you hear them played over the radio.

Let’s get to the point. How does an OFW celebrate spend Christmas away from home? I’m sure you just noticed the strike symbol that was used over the word “celebrate“. It wasn’t a post decor or anything coz in my own personal opinion, I could never call it a celebration. Simply because, I never got to spend it with my family - for the past 8 long years.

Rewind >>> I left home in October 1999, just two months before Christmas, full of hopes and courage that one day, someday, my family will never get to struggle again - ever. This is why I left the Philippines for greener pasture 8 years ago. I carried a heavy heart with me. For the longest time in my life, I had never been separated from my family. Call it separation anxiety at the age of 23, well, I may just have to agree. Not knowing what kind of life would give me there, the fact that I will be miles away from home for the first time is already killing me. The moment I settled myself inside the plane, again for the first time had already brought me to fear. Anyhow, I said to myself “I’ll be fine”, next thing I’d know I’d be ready for another flight going back to the Philippines.

Keeping up with an average monthly remittance can sometimes be a burden. You don’t know when “the need of an extra money” is going to occur. And the worst, it always happens at a bad time, either the salary hasn’t come through to your account yet or it falls on a holiday or weekend which obviously means that offices are closed. When this thing happens, I bet you wish that Genie does really exist to grant at least one of your wishes and that is “make those figures appear on my account N-O-W or get the bank open to attend to your request”.

From my personal experience when I was still working abroad, bank and door to door padala transactions are not the best option when put in a situation that your family needs the money now - as in right now. Simply because this kind of padala transaction takes about 2-3 working days and could sometimes get delayed for some reasons like you have sent the money just before the cut-off blah blah blah! So what happens next? Nothing. All you could do is wait until the next working day comes. And another days of waiting for the recipient to finally receive the money. Read full article over at eOFW.net.

While you read on, let me finish my write up about Titleist golf.

I always hear Globe OFW Family Pack being plugged over Wowowee and for a moment I was convinced. Actually, I was about to buy a pack so when we leave next month, my family would also be able to call me. But then I thought of checking the difference first with Smart roaming services before buying. I then searched over the Net to see what other people who are using Globe roaming service have shared:

im also using roaming globe normal prepaid sim card dito sa qatar. then si bf, when he heard about this ofw family sim, tinawag nya na lang sa customer service at ginawa kaming family sim. kaya zero maintaning balance na ako. at saka mas naging stable yung signal ng globe, dati kasi madalas mawalan ng signal. so, palaging unli lang sya at yung globe ko naman pang receive lang ng mga texts messages nya, and what i like about globe roaming, pwede syang matawagan, kaya lang 60 pesos ang charged sa tinawagan. by ms_ldr

i’m using this before kami ni hubby nasa US sya. ok sa part ko kasi 1 peso lang ang bawas sakin and i can even text him kung naka unli ako or sulitxt. yung sa part nya lang ang masaklap kasi its like 20 pesos or 25 pesos pag sumagot sya sakin. tapos kahit sino samin ang tumawag may bawas sa kanya. tinawagan ko sya nabawasan na ko nabawasan pa sya. 80 pesos per minute ang bawas sa kanya. nagtataka ko kung bakit ganun then i called CS ng globe 80 nga daw ang bawas. by honeycake

After reading those comments, I decided to just continue  my Smart sim.

This will be the first Christmas that me and Derelle will get to enjoy. And at almost 3, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the spirit of gift giving on Christmas day. The tradition that we Filipinos have - opening gifts at exactly 12 midnight or sometimes even earlier than that haha! With these thoughts, I’m really thinking hard what to give my daughter. Something that would make her real happy. I wanna see a glowing smile as she opens the gift. No, doll won’t make her happy. She’s not for it. I am actually thinking of buying a toy laptop for her. I’ve seen one in one of the shops here in Olongapo, it has a pink mouse with it. It looks like a real one. I thought if she gets that, then maybe she’d allow me to work peacefully haha! But then I might end up sharing the seat with her, coz for sure she’d insist to put the thing on my desk as well, so I’m dropping that idea unless I get her a table at the same time ahuhuhu!

The “thinking” isn’t over yet… I still am. *sigh* She adores Barney but I think it’s not too girly haha! She also loves Dora, but she’s already got Dora stuff.

I’m running out of ideas… But you know what, the other day I saw some