Turumba

A traditional family nestled in the Philippines makes its living selling toys, lively animals made from paper mâché earn them a modest yet ample living.

The father is the village "Cantor" and leads a procession at the Turumba Festival, a local honour cherished and respected throughout the peaceful laidback countryside.

His family sells its toys at that same festival where it makes enough to live on throughout the year, their creations sought after viscerally due to the lifelike detail of their composition. 

Indeed Grandma oversees each toy's production and never withholds her well-meaning criticism, should her grandchildren employ less vigorous industry in the application of their art.

Time honoured modes of intricate manufacture collide with postmodern demands, however, when amazed toy sellers from a foreign land effectively hire them to thrive in abundance. 

Production vastly increases and soon many people from the village are hired, from 500 to 25,000 delicate toys definitively made with burgeoning expertise. 

But something's lost through the sudden transition and even though much more money's being made, free time to converse and relax or hike and explore fades into the disciplined background.

No doubt tempting to elaborately excel in lucrative crafty business endeavours, and to readily supply sought after local jobs with robust impacts and substantial reckoning.

The manufacture of their toys does little harm to the local environment, and therefore doesn't recklessly pollute the mountainous terrain they freely call home.

Free time to spend spiritually enriched with emphatic energy in the pursuit of life, can lead to a less stressful existence as the years pass with zest however.

There's a sense of pride and comprehensive achievement in the maintenance of fluid enterprise, but is the impoverished machete man not also rich with coveted free time to spend in the jungle?

As the Holiday Season swiftly approaches and the inherent glitter dazzlingly tantalizes, it's encompassingly intriguing to efficiently work and secure sufficient funds to commercially accommodate. 

But without the spiritual eagerness those emancipated hours resting with family and friends, does the season not lose some of its limitless value in the stoic determination to ceaselessly labour?

Different answers to different people but chillin' time is certainly important.

It's also cool to have lots of cash. 

The age old dialectic.

Acutely manifest.