Picture this: It's a Saturday afternoon in mid-October, at a time when
summer has not quite left, winter impatiently looms, while autumn demands. It's my season! It is 10 degrees Celsius outside gloomy, not sunny, not cold, not warm and here i am supposed to draw Advent prose out of my literary juices to meet Christmas issue deadlines.

I make excuses for myself: I need to hear White Christmas, look at
stringed pin lights and smell cinnamon, I need to frolick in the snow, drink
Gluehwein and go to the woods to choose my Christmas tree.

I reminded myself: You have known other Christmases, in other continents,
why don't you write about them? I say, they are too sybaritic, very Epicurean and self-indulgent, not everyone will understand.

I become poignant: I spent the first twenty-five Christmases of my life in
the Philippines. This is mine, this is my memory of the Philippines. No one
can take it away from me. My Philippines is not geographical, not a group of 7,100 islands in the South East. Sometimes it feels like continents away,
seven time zones beyond. Most times however, it is a state of the mind.

And so I think back, all the way back, when Christmas meant two weeks off from school, when my mother's kitchen smells of suman, bijon and sweet Ongpin ham. A red parol hangs on the porch, a Christmas tree made of white twigs decorated with tinsel balls stands in the living room corner while my young parents walk around with smiles, quite assured in the knowledge that their kids will get what they asked for, while us three kids wondered for days if we'll ever get what we wanted. We had only one present each, not more, but it was the only thing that mattered to us. The presents were not expensive, but for us kids, the word expensive was something relative.

Waiting for Christmas Eve is the longest wait in a child's life. It is
forever compared to the long wait to turn eighteen, so one could be of legal age. It is long wait for the first date, the first kiss or the first night out
without a chaperone. A chaperone? A cyber kid would ask these days, is that a French word?

There is a benefit dance in the plaza tonight, my father announces as he
picks a longganisa slice from my mother's bijon. Shall we go watch, later attend the midnight Mass and go home to open the presents? Four enthusiastic yeses were heard.

My mother packed sweaters, it could get cool at this bayside village in
December. When we arrived at the plaza, an entire orchestra was playing a waltz number to a full crowd. I watched my parents say hello to a good number of people while we kids hid behind my mother's back to avoid being pinched on the cheeks or be gushed over. My brother knows the ordeal too well, he has made a quiet exit to join his buddies seated on the left side of the stage. My sister is quite young and falls asleep on a tango number. I watched my parents dance, both slim, both agile. My father would whisper something and I would catch my mother's smile, and in the semi-darkness, I swear, I saw her blush.

The world was alright, there was the five of us.

The following day, December 25, was a pastora day. A group of eight to
twelve young girls dressed in pink, sometimes in yellow, their young faces made up like movie stars, would go around the village and dance for money. I followed this group from house to house within our neighborhood, only to be found by mother's helper who has orders for me to go home, NOW!

A Protestant Church stands in front of my grandmother's house and I would watch, fascinated, the Bethlehem scene, enacted live by the church
members. Darn, they were performing artists. Again, I was found by my mother's helper, told to go home, to be scolded, You are a Catholic.

Christmas Day is open house at my parents' home. The table is laden with
goodies prepared during the last two days. Godchildren come and visit.
Neighbors send their own version of bijon; we send our own redaction of bijon in exchange. Plates and serving trays were never returned empty. It was a part of the tradition I grew up in.

Christmas season in Metro Manila in my early twenties after I left home
was different. The first year was bad, it was spent waiting for a college
sweetheart whose idea of a Christmas spent with me was a Dinner For Two but on December 26. The following year, to avoid the same heartache, I went home to my parents who noticed the changes. I was no longer their little girl, but I was not quite a woman either. The metamorphosis showed, the cuts of growing up did not go unnoticed.

The last two Christmases before I left the Philippines were the wildest
and most exciting, if not unforgettable. My friends and I feasted off our
Christmas bonuses and 13th month pay. Darn we felt rich and acted rich. We had candlelight dinners at Mario's, hanged around The Manila Peninsula lobby, listened to the bands at the Kachina Lounge and Siete Pecados. We frequented Where Else and the Stargazer, other guests thought we were parts of the inventory. We shopped for Christmas presents from Shoe Mart and Rustan's and when the credit limits were used up, we settled for the unused Anson's card. We were young, our accounts were overdrawn, but we were very, very happy.

Mid 80s in Miami: Christmases were decadent malls, hedonistic hotel
dinners, La Dolce Vita under palm trees. This was the 809 in the US of A when the buzz words were conspicous consumption. One flauntad, wore and drove what one earned. I traded lobster tails at Key Biscayne for my Mom's suman, bijon and Ongpin ham. But then again, only a few would understand.

Late 80s up to the present: It's European Christmas. Mozart and Brahms.
The Swan Lake and Aida. Snow and Lebkuchen. Baked goose and Weihnachtsmarkt. It's overseas calls to my family in the Philippines and email messages dripping with homesickness, longings to be home, when home is right here, but it's not easy to accept, much more to honestly admit.

And so I make an entire wok of pancit, only to realize that there's only
the two of us to eat. I look out of the window and watch the snowfall -
quietly, gently, serenely. I really do miss home, wherever that is.

***********************

MALIGAYANG PASKO

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

FROEHLICHE WEIHNACHTEN