I once told my best friend that Christmas was my favorite holiday. Despite the fact that many people think that it’s just for kids, I beg to disagree. I could list a million things I love about this season, especially when one spends it here in the Philippines (speaking of which, I firmly believe we should be crowned as the Christmas capital of the world – but that’s another story).
Maybe it’s the thousand twinkling lights, or the irresistible smell of puto bungbong and bibingka cooking over charcoal, or maybe it’s the cool, crisp breeze that blows while you make your way to the village church in time for simbang gabi. Maybe it’s the mystery of the wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree and the joy we get from rattling it endlessly, trying to guess what’s inside. It could also be all the free food we get to eat during Christmas parties, reunions or noche buena. To me it’s a thousand different things, all special, all contributing to my love of this time of the year.
However, most important of all these is the fact that I get to enjoy this time of year with my family. I can lose the stuff that holidays are made of – trees, lights, gifts, food – and yet I know that it will still feel like Christmas as long as my family is complete.
Christmas is surely about my father’s hearty laughter as he plays old-time carols and reminisces about the past with us, his children.
It’s about my mom busily pacing all around the house attending to everything, oblivious to the world until a few minutes before midnight, when she would gather the family around our noche buena and say a thanksgiving prayer.
It’s about waiting for my brother to come home from last-minute errands so we can all dress up and head to the church for the Christmas Eve mass.
It’s about my little sister Tata counting and re-counting her gifts until she loses track, and then counting them again to make sure she has the number correct… until finally she falls asleep like an angel on the couch, growing tired of waiting for the opening of gifts.
But most of all, it’s about watching all these things unfold, year after year – and realizing that not many things about my Christmases have changed. It’s about me getting the chance to be a kid again.
In this day and age when I am almost two decades old, it surprises me how I have already gone tired of living like an adult. Despite the freedom that comes with growing older, I long for the carefree days of my childhood – when my decisions did not have huge consequences, when my choices were not at all life-changing. But I know time can never be stopped nor regained. It just goes on and on, day after day, year after year, and we grow older and older…
Perhaps this is also one of the reasons why I love Christmas. It allows me to be that kid again. It is an excuse to act all giddy and hopeful and worry-free and unburdened by the things around you. It gives us time to forget poverty or low standards of living and be unconditionally happy, to focus on all the good things in life – like family, friends, and the mere fact that you are alive.
When I look back and think how other people say that Christmas is just for kids, I sometimes think that maybe they are right. Because Christmas remains the one time when people all turn into kids – when the bad things don’t really matter as long as you’ve got family… when it’s really all just about getting lost in the childhood magic that, whether we like it or not, Christmas truly brings.
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