Me and my family spent this day inside the mall (started doing this last 2 years... watching 2 Filmfest movies each time and then eating out). I dunno if its a good place to celebrate Christmas but we were together, that's all that matters.

We arrived at Robinson's Place at around 11am. Thought we're late but was surprised to see lotsa lotsa people outside, waiting for the mall to open up. Good thing our dad decided to walk around the mall and saw that the guard at the side entrance allowed some people to enter already. Among the 7 movies showing, we watched Mano Po. Seemed like most of the people inside the moviehouse were Chinese or Filipino-Chinese. Me and my sis weren't sure if we made the right choice of seeing this one. We picked this one thinking it's about Filipino-Chinese families but we weren't expecting political undertones coming from this one (but it's a Joel Lamangan movie right?). It wouldn't take much for you to figure out who they were taking after among the controversial people we see & hear from the news. Geez...we wanted something that's not political (that was why we didn't try watching Dekada '70 although we wanted to see if the movie did justice to the novel). Sure there were Agimat and Lawin and Home Along the Riber but the genre's different. We were obviously disappointed with this one (because of other reasons, topping the list: not a good script... seemed like they didn't know how they would even end the story). A good point nonetheless, they were able to show how birthdays, engagement ceremonies and burial rites are done by Chinese people. And even if most of the actors looked like they had a hard time speaking in Chinese (most were dubbed by real Chinese people anyways), we recognize the effort.

My dad wanted to watch another movie but the three of us weren't in the mood. He went on to watch while we did our rounds. Looks like he enjoyed Lapu-Lapu more. Tsk tsk... just shows how we would rather watch anything than something that's historical (guilty!).

It wasn't that crowded there although I bet there were more in SM malls. And the stores, most of them are opened surprisingly (it was the other way around last year).

Hmm.. all in all... I'd say I had a really happy Christmas this year.