Christmas :)

Since it is the first day of December, my favorite month of the year, I would like to start counting down to my favorite day of all days in this earth - Christmas Day!

24 tulog na lang! yipee!

I think the reason why I so love Christmas is that it suggests to bring out the child in each one of us. Actually, when I look back at my childhood days, one of the few things I can recall vividly are my Christmases. Ride your sleighs, for I think this is gonna be a long trip down to memory lane.

I think I was already eight or nine when we first had a Christmas tree, a real one. I had asked my mom why our tree was different from others' trees inside their homes. You see, while most have green pine trees decorated with balls & ribbons of different colors and sizes, ours would be strings tied to a nail and stretched to a short distance to form something that at least resembled a tree (which I still think did not) and she would put the pop-out Belen we had been using for years, inside the improvised tree. Another year it was an inverted walis tingting decorated with old little balls and other colorful decors made of metallic paper we bought from the market. The closest to a real Christmas tree we had was this plant in our terrace whose leaves had already fallen out. Mama hanged our old little balls again and put some garlands and shining lights on it. I think her answer to my question of why we do not have a real tree was that "Wala tayong pambili, anak."

That was fine. We always had wonderful Christmas together. And then one night, Mama and Papa came home holding this box so large. They had shopped for a real Christmas tree! My sister and I were so delighted to finally have one. We helped Mama in building and decorating it. When we were done, it still lacked some decors, but I was too happy to care.

My sister and I also hanged our socks for Santa Claus to see. We would borrow Papa's socks because they were bigger. I can't remember exactly who told me that Santa isn't real. Even when we knew, Ate and I continued hanging our socks. One Christmas, when instead of a wrapped present I found ten bundled 20 pesos in my socks, I jokingly made parinig to good old 'Santa' saying "Ang barat naman ata ngayon ni Santa." I saw my mom trying to hide her smile.

I also remember how Papa would decorate the outside of our homes with Christmas lights. There was this time when I thought the house looked like a cabaret because there were lights at every corner and angle. I still loved it anyway.

Noche Buena was never a tradition. We only started doing it 4 or 5 years ago when my aunt suggested we do it. She and my cousins and uncle would go home the day before. We'll cook a lot of food. Everyone's favorite, spaghetti, was never lost on our plates. We will wake up a little before 12, eat together and then open our gifts. In the morning, we will go to mass together if we hadn't the night before.

And then the actual day! Ever since I could walk and talk unashamedly, my cousins and I made Christmas our negosyo. In our barangay, wearing our best Christmas outfits with sling bags hanging on our shoulders, we would go from one house to another, knocked if doors were closed and say our rehearsed "Mamamasko po!" We would mano to every adult in the house and they would give us coins if they aren't our relatives, orange or red paper bills if they are, and purplish ones or luckily a Ninoy, if they are our dear ninongs and ninangs. Thankfully, more than half of the population in our barangay are our relatives, so imagine how good business was for us. We'll go home, our bags and pockets fat and our hands barely managing to hold on the gifts. What a merry merry Christmas!

It was only when I started high school and I already had some bumps ahead that I stopped going door-to-door with my younger cousins. Since then I stayed in the house and just watched kids who do exactly what we did when we were little. At times, I would be the one giving them the aguinaldos.

This year, we will continue with our tradition. I can't wait to cook and eat our favorite dishes, wrap gifts and open the ones for me, and watch kids (some of them my inaanaks already) walk through the house and wish us a merry Christmas. These are the simple joys that even at nineteen, makes me look at Christmas with child-like wonder and happiness.

In case you would like to know, this is how our Christmas tree looks like now:
Beautiful, isn't it? :D