WITH Christmas just around the corner, hordes of children carolers are making the rounds of the neighborhood, increasing in number as Dec. 25 draws nearer and nearer. And if one is to participate in the tradition, he or she should have a bagful of coins, as all sorts of carolers knock on your door or press the buzzer on the gate. The old belief that one should not turn any caroler away empty handed still holds very strong these days.

But time, the economy and personal attitudes have changed and we who have aged may not have been hip about the changing contours of our days and seasons considering that the year’s seasons come and go and sometimes overlap in our personal perception. Just like what happened to me the other day.

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A group of neighborhood kids came around about noon last Sunday while I was doing some work in my PC. In a town like Balamban, the only way you can be disturbed is by the neighbors, and nothing can entice you to go elsewhere on Sundays, except perhaps to the church. But I always attend dawn mass on Sundays. So I did not mind the kids that started caroling at the gate.

When nobody seemed to mind them, they did not hesitate to come to the door. But I was in my room and did not hear them. Suddenly, one of my great grand nieces twice removed barged into the room and asked breathlessly for coins to give to the kids. Mindlessly I lifted my PC’s keyboard and took two 25-centavo coins and shooed her away.

I was most surprised when I heard the commotion from the sala and heard the snickering of the older kids. I shouted to give the money to the carolers. But instead the snickering and the commotion grew louder. Finally, I went out of the room to ask what was happening.

There they were, gathered in the living room, along with the carolers who were waiting for their gift. And there were my great grandniece and her elder sisters and brothers sitting and unable to push her to give the coins to the other kids. It suddenly occurred to me that they knew the kids from the neighborhood and were ashamed to give the two 25-centavo coins.

It was no longer money to them. The P0.50 value of the coins could not even buy a piece of bread.

I was aghast at the thought. Suddenly I realized that what I could buy with my P.01 before, more than 70 years ago, I can no longer buy now at less than P1.00. In fact, the smallest amount most acceptable at the corner store, or by the vendors outside the nearby elementary school of our town, is P1.00. Less than that, the kids take it as nothing short of a big joke. No wonder their strange look when I emerged from my room.