December 25
is something I look forward to celebrate every year. It is one of those rare
occasions when I would get to see my kinsfolk gathered up in our family house
where we would fill our tummies with my father’s home cooking, chatter about
prattles that doesn’t necessarily concern us, belt out ridiculously high tunes
in the videoke, and spend the rest of the afternoon bonding out in the streets
of Vigan.
At first I
thought this year’s Christmas day wouldn’t go so well. During Noche Buena, my lola was constantly complaining of an excruciating back pain. In an
apparently unbearable episode, she cried out the words, “Matayak kuman Apo.” (“Lord, please kill me now.”) The tuna pasta I
was about to gobble down stopped in mid-air when the remark reached my ears.
Now that wasn’t really the proper thing to say in front of people who were in
the middle of Christmas festivities, was it? She kept on mumbling about death
as we tried to manage the situation. There was a noticeable change in the
atmosphere, and as a result, my Dad didn’t join the gift-opening session in
exasperation and I suddenly lost interest in all the gifts waiting to be
unwrapped laid in front of me. Good thing my sister was unmindful of the prior
incident, so she went on to unwrap all of her presents, including the cosmetic
kit I bought her out of jest.
What a way to kick off Christmas, I daresay.
Anyway, the good thing about having 24 hours in a day is that if you messed up for the first few hours, you could always have 20+ more hours to patch things up. I wasn’t going to let the Christmas spirit in me get sucked up by this initial debacle, especially on Christmas day.
After a good night’s sleep, I woke up to the saliva-dropping aroma of my father’s home cooking. I quickly got up and helped in the preparations for the traditional Christmas reunion. There were onions to be chopped here, pork to be minced there, guests to be welcomed, and freshly-cooked food to be tasted (Ah, the joys of helping out in the kitchen!). Everyone felt like chefs that day—well not particularly me, as I did more tasting than cooking.
At about 3pm, I invited some of my cousins to have a walk to Plaza Maestro, where I told to them pick out intermediately-priced items so they can take it as gifts for themselves. Imagine my joy when they would ecstatically explore every aisle and laugh at each other for taking so long to choose the things they wanted to buy. It took us 3 hours before we could finish with the shopping. Always the same thing with girls: they want to burrow through every pile of clothing wear just to choose the clothes that would cater their liking… or probably I’m just generalizing. Yeah, I’m just generalizing.
One of the greater surprises I received during that day was when my cousin and Ate Rocel (our house help) handed me a small Doraemon plush toy on the way home. It seems that while I wasn’t looking, they tried to pitch in whatever small amount they could share just to buy me this toy. Deeply touched, I was at loss for words of gratitude as they handed me their gift. I walked home, deeply immersed into the Christmas spirit that was flowing over my immediate surroundings.
As we looked
up the skies ahead of us, the stars started to twinkle in one accord, as if to
celebrate the most joyous event of the year.
So what
started off as an apparently disconsolate Christmas day ended with a happy
note. *Sigh.*
Happy
birthday Jesus! Thank you for coming into this world and for teaching us how to
give love even in the simplest way possible!
Hope you had
a happy Christmas!
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