It’s four days before Christmas and I still haven’t done my Christmas shopping. I know it’s going to be quite hellish battling it out with other last-minute Christmas shoppers, but I honestly still don’t feel the holiday spirit. I am busy with work—and I want to be busy with work. Marc has already informed our clients that our web team would be taking a Christmas break starting this Saturday, so I’m “milking” this busy-ness as much as I can.

Why? Well, for one, work distracts me.

I think this is what Noemi calls “holiday blues.” But no, I’m not depressed. I still function like I used to, I’m just favoring quieter moments as opposed to loud parties. I know this sounds crazy, but I miss my dog Sheero so much—Christmas just isn’t the same without her 🙁

Our new dog, Shantee, keeps us on our toes (she’s adorable, take a look), but there’s still sadness. After all, it’s only been two months since our dog left us. I’m coping quite well, my daily routine hasn’t really changed much—heck, I was even able to give a talk on independent problogging to a group of Ateneo students with Jayvee last week. If I was depressed, I probably wouldn’t have the heart to drag myself to even work, let alone give a lecture.

Sorry to dampen your holiday spirits, but I just can’t help but feel a bit melancholy. There are just a lot of things going on with me right now (yes, that’s the very same reason why I haven’t been blogging as regularly as I did before Sheero passed away), and somehow I feel like doing more worthwhile things than partying every single day before Christmas. Work had been a great distraction, but since I wouldn’t have that starting tomorrow, I figured doing something good this coming break would suffice.

I have two dog-related projects to be launched next year. Can’t say much, but I will soon. Another one that would keep me quite busy is the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards. Yes, you read it right: there will be another one. But it’s going to come a bit later than last year’s so we’ll have more time to make this one even better. If you’d like to help out, do drop me line. Plans are still on the drawing board, but we don’t mind getting pledges for volunteering as early as now.

I’m also looking for a public school and a charity to donate old books and clothes to. If you can recall, we’ve already decided to move to a new home. So now we’re giving away stuff that we don’t use anymore. New home, cleaner house. We just have too many things here that other people would make better use of. Besides, we’re planning to move to a smaller house—this one is honestly a tad too big for all for the five of us. I’m still in touch with the socially-oriented organization Marc and I have been part of in college, but I know around this time they’ve already finished the donation part and the clothes will just be stocked for their next garage sale who-knows-when. If you know a charity that would like to receive our old clothes and books (pocketbooks, encyclopedia sets, almanacs, etc.), do leave a message. I’d love to hear from you.

To be totally honest, these projects make my sad Christmas a little bit more cheerier than parties do. I don’t really understand it, but it seems like a deeper kind of “celebrating” is what I need to get out of this funk. Getting drunk and partying till dawn just seem to be temporary fixes—happiness that don’t really last.

It’s weird, isn’t it? My little furry friend in heaven somehow helped me see things differently. And I’m glad she did 🙂

Happy Holidays, everyone!