Remembrance of Christmases past

How did Santa Claus know that I wanted, wanted, wanted so many tubes of plastic balloons? In all the colors, fuchsia, yellow-green, which my mother so knowingly calls "chartreuse," every color available packaged in a nylon stocking! How wonderful! I was just so happy that Christmas. How old was I then? I think I was eight years old. It must have been my first jubilant Christmas. How profoundly I believed in Santa.

I am tall for a 12-year-old and look old for my age. I no longer believe in all the mythology of Christmas. I am somewhat torn between being a little girl and a big one. I am not yet a teen though you might suspect me of being one. I suppose I am called a tween, short for in-between the little girl and the teenager. I go to our neighbors Lolo Ponso and Lola Binyang to say Merry Christmas. Lolo Ponso pays attention to me and gives me a small bottle of French perfume. "Jicky" it is called and I love the smell of it. It is the best gift I receive that Christmas. I remember it till now.

Then we are in Barcelona with my cousins and friends, a big patchwork group. I am 17 years old. Tony Hwang is with us. He is very young, shy, a Chinese student in Paris. His parents have sent him a box with his favorite food and it includes ours, too. There are many of us staying at La Rotonda Hotel: from Lausanne, Switzerland, Menchu Katigbak, Chiqui Liongson and me; from England, Didit and Boysie Syquia, Betsy Romualdez; from Paris Tony Hwang; and from the Philippines, our great chaperone, Pete Syquia, Didit and Boysie’s dad, my uncle. We were a fun rambunctious crowd then, giggling and laughing all the time, joyful as only young, single people can be. I don’t know any more what we did on Christmas Day itself. All I remember is we had a lot of fun.

The next Christmas I remember was one when I was very unhappy. I wrapped presents in silver foil with gold ribbons and brown pine cones lightly sprayed with gold paint. By then I had three daughters, all babies. The birth control pill had just been invented. It was not a happily married time, my penultimate Christmas before I left the marital abode, taking my three little girls with me.

I remember a Christmas spent in Bel-Air when I was miserable, and another one in Forbes when we were very happy. I remember waking up in the middle of the night noting that someone had turned on the tree and was holding the light up into the window of our bedroom. I wondered who it was, tried to awaken my partner who would not budge. I thought it might be a ghost so I closed my eyes tightly and went back to sleep. What Christmases we had then! Happy, full of people, full of gifts until. . . it was gone. We broke up on December 15. It was horrible that year, a tear-drenched Christmas, that’s what it was and the sorrow that came with Christmas never truly left.

But there were happier times. I got into the rhythm of it. On Christmas morning I would get up very early to roast a turkey for lunch. Then we would have lunch – my children and I and a few friends who happened to be around, who happened to be free. There was laughter and mischief and gaiety and gifts. They were good Christmases while the children were growing up. Then they were grown, married, they all had dramas of their own.

So far my most memorable Christmas was in 1987. We lived in Burlingame then and I had one grandson, Littlie Powie, who was two. Panjee and I got into the car one day and bought ourselves a Christmas tree. We got it loaded, managed to unload it amidst a lot of giggles and laughter, managed to set it up and trim it ourselves. We got together for Christmas Eve dinner. Gino was there. Sarri flew in from New York. We were all together as a family. My best friend Lisa and her two boys Carlo, and Paolo, joined us. After dinner we opened gifts. Someone knocked loudly on our door. When we opened it we found a big box, a fancy car for Powie, whose eyes lit up so brightly. I will never forget the look on our baby’s face. That was the last, the finest Christmas my family had in the United States.

Today, John Fernandez came to deliver copies of photos he had taken of me. He belongs to a camera club. I look at my photographs and notice how old I have become. The skin around my eyes is wrinkled, like fine spider webs running below and around my eyes. My God, I think, as I study the photographs, how old I have become. Where did the years go? They went into memories, some heart-warming, others blood-chilling. They show you that there are memorable times and forgettable times. They show you that you have a mélange, a mixture. You don’t know whether Christmas will be happy or not. All you know is that it will be, you will celebrate or live through it, it will pass, but it will come again, get better, get worse.

This year in a way is better than last in that I set up Christmas decorations. I am screening them, you see. I want to know what to keep, what to throw away. Then I shall find my spirit again some time in the future. One day my family will have Christmas together again. It will be as joyful as finding all that plastic balloon under the tree again. I promise it will happen at least once more. Until it does, I shall light a few candles, play a few songs and remember the good Christmases past.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

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