Top 1: Christmas Day Rituals

On Christmas morning, everyone would still wake up early despite having stayed up late during Christmas Eve. We all had to be at the 10:00 am Christmas Mass at Espiritu Santo Church. About 40 of us... and 1 bathroom... you do the math!

Kinda crazy, huh? But it was definitely fun! All the girls would put on their Christmas dresses, and the boys would be in their slacks and dress shirts. As my Dad would put it, "Paskung-Pasko!" Heehee!

One year, I was probably 8 at the time, we all got dressed and the girls were comparing our dresses, noticing that we all had pink in our outfits - except for Denise. So Ging and Denise got into this argument: "This dot is pink!" "No it's not!" "Yes it is!" It went on and on until all the girls were on it, too! And it's just hilarious now that I think about how petty that fight was... but it turned out to be quite a dramatic - and traumatic - Christmas morning, which included walkouts, hurt feelings, and cold "Peace be with you" exchanges. Ugh!

But that was probably one of those times when I first realized that families are NOT perfect at all. We all have those moments of weaknesses (we definitely should have acted and reacted differently), but we get past those through forgiveness and letting go. At the end of the day, you just realize that you love each other and the petty differences don't really matter.

Anyway, as you can imagine, my brother, my sister, and I would almost always feel like staying at our grandparents' house in Santa Cruz to be with our cousins. And since it was our Christmas vacation from school, there was no reason why we shouldn't stay and have fun until school starts again, right? Except for one: the opening of our presents at our home in Las Pinas! (Later on, my mom revealed that it was her tactic to get us to want to go home. Otherwise, she would miss us terribly if we had to stay for vacation at Lolo and Lola's house. Wise move!)

We would ask our aunts about having our cousins to come to our home and stay with us for the entire Christmas break. Usually, we had Ging over. She would help us open our presents, go with us to our godparents' houses in Casimiro Village ("Namamasko po!"), and have sago't gulaman at this karinderia on Benfran Loop when we're done with our Christmas rounds.

(Sigh) I miss Ging. I miss my cousins in the Philippines. I miss our Christmas Day rituals. I miss Christmas in the Philippines, period.

But blogging all about it made the process of letting go so much easier. I've been holding onto these memories in my heart for so long that it seemed like I refused to define Christmas any other way. No one can put a price tag on my childhood memories of Christmas - that's for sure! I will always look back on them fondly. In fact, I've used some of them to incorporate into the Christmas memories that I am now creating for my family, my children.

But now, I am simply contented in finally moving forward - with warm memories intact and God-willing, many more bright Christmases ahead!