My eyes were closed and I am in tight slumber around a bunch of cottony cushions. I was hearing soft tunes of twinkles and lullabies above my head when I smelled an aroma of appetite. I was then half-awakened. I tried to open my eyes as much as I could and saw stars and little cute and colorful animals hanging above me. My playmates! All of a sudden, I heard a familiar voice in enthusiasm saying, “Countdown na! 5, 4..” I closed my eyes again. While counting, the voice seems to come closer to where I am. “3, 2, 1!” The voice has already reached a few inches from where I am lying. Then I heard, “Tammmm! Gising na!” A hand touched my face. I recognized it immediately. It was Mother’s. I tried to open my eyes really wide. I saw my Mother with the smile on her face. It confirmed the warm feeling I got when her skin touched mine.
She let me stand. My head is on her right shoulder as we leave out of the cold room. The door opened for us and there was a figure of a man. I can only see a shadow and I can only hear a voice, again a familiar one. As it went fronting my face, I identified it at instant. My Father was making faces in front of me. He was so funny doing his best to make me laugh when all I see is a trying hard humor on his face. Then he was following us as we finally left the room.
Various voices were all I heard, welcoming us as we approach the living room. Then they were all at the back of my Mom. Trying to be in front of me but they just can’t fit all at once. They were saying
“Merry Christmas, Tamm!” in chorus. Their voices were overlapping one another. Then eventually I was able to recognize them. They wore familiar faces but I can’t remember their names or even my relation with them. But all I felt was delight because they were in uniform wearing a big grin on their faces.
Then we headed to the dining room. There I saw lots of colors painted on what’s above the plates. I can’t recognize those but I think those are what they call as ‘foods’. Before they start to lunge into the filled plates, they settled themselves among the chairs around the table. And my Papa got me a special seat. There I was comfortably seated. He led the prayer for the food and began to pass over the food to everyone except me. I wonder why I was of exemption. But at that time I was not that hungry so it was alright for me. I was just seated in between my Mama and Papa and enjoyed looking at each one going on a binge. They were talking and laughing while eating. Every once in a while, they take a glance on me to check me out and then they start to talk about me. They were noticing every little change in me, usually physically. Well, I also didn’t care. I was just listening to them as they were in high spirits in appreciating everything of me. Deep inside, I felt so good upon hearing all those. But I just can’t stop showing an indifferent façade.
After clearing the table, we moved to the couch and assembled ourselves on the living room where a lot of creatures are also living. There I perceived breathing colors everywhere. I saw red, green, yellow and blue display of series connected tube of lights. There is an old man with white mustache all the time standing above the table of fluffy bears, rabbits and dogs which I always try to reach and play with. As I panned my vision to the right side of the room, I spotted a small house made of scraps of wood. Inside were non-moving men, there were three of them with something striking above their heads. They were surrounding a man and a woman kneeling and looking at a cute baby laid on a lawn. And at the corner was a tall green tree with silvery balls hanged on it and a glimmering star at its peak. Below it are boxes wrapped in colorful papers and ribbons. WOW! I was in glee with everything that was fed to my eyes.
Then my Mama starts singing, “I love my Manita. Yes I do!” She was singing it over and over again until she handed her gift to an old lady. I just heard her calling her, Lola. After a number of rounds of singing and exchanging of presents, they all went near the green tree and got a box. They went closer to me and gave all those boxes to me. I was surprised because I can’t understand why they did that. I didn’t give anything but then I received too many. I was just fixing my eyes on the boxes and place my hands on them. My Mama and Papa were around me and opened the boxes for me. Then revealed from the inside were very nice things. I don’t know what those were but I just find them pleasurable since my parents were very glad upon opening. At that moment, everyone still had that smile on their faces which just drew one on mine. They cackled seeing me smile and laughed more when I chuckled. Everyone was merry.
After a while, I find myself back to the cold room where I was sleeping a while ago. I am gazing around the room and notice that almost everything had changed, even its size. It doesn’t feel cold inside anymore. It feels warm. There are many things around me and all are red, gold, silver and green decorations. I’m sitting on a chair while noticing my Mama elevated by a chair, trying to reach the tall green tree. She’s placing flowers around it while recounting to me our 12 midnight of December 25, 1991. I was just 4 months old back then but I haven’t felt that while Mama was telling me the story.
I am 20 years old now and I realized how Christmas had always been for our family since the day I was born. It was the same as before. Gift-giving, food sharing, decorating, everything was just as how it was for almost two decades ago. Probably excluding those 9 years when I was the only endearing small kid at home that I got to receive all gifts from each of them. Nevertheless, the feeling was just the same.
I may have not fully understood what the occasion was all about at that point in time, but the sensation was exactly similar. I have gone through differences with the members of my family through the years as I was growing older yet the same affection since my 1st Christmas Eve lingered not just for a certain time of the year but for the whole time I was with them. “Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.” That is how a renowned American novelist, Edna Ferber, depicted Christmas on her book Roast Beef, Medium. Indeed she was truthful with how she put into words ‘Christmas’ -- a very joyous feeling in everyone’s life since a Savior was brought to life.
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