Christmas on installment

To me Christmas doesn’t feel like very much this year. My apartment is a mess. I am sorting my mother’s clothes and they are heaped on a big chair in my living room. I still don’t know what precisely to do with them.   I am dividing her things among us, keeping in mind two things: One, that they should fit, and, two, that I should be fair. In between this sorting, folding, cleaning and sneezing, life flashes by in little windows of memories that often make me smile.

I remember a Christmas photograph of me — a little girl sitting under a big Christmas tree — wearing a turquoise organdy dress that I had worn as flower girl to an uncle’s wedding. How old was I then? Maybe three or four. It was taken at our home in Sta. Mesa. The photograph is in sepia but I remember the color of my dress and the pine fragrance from the tree.

Memories of Sta. Mesa open other windows for me. I was that small but I had a crush on our neighbor, whose name I will deliberately misspell as Oh-jing. He was much older than me. He was in college while I was in kindergarten. I told my Lola that one day when I got big, I would marry him. One afternoon in a twilight that was peach and blue, I was standing at her gate with her when he came home from school. “Oh-jing,” my Lola called, “she says she’s going to marry you when she grows up.” I was so embarrassed I felt myself blush. But he smiled then asked if he could take my picture. I was thrilled. Of course, I did not marry him. When we grew older I was much taller than he. Anyway, when we moved away we lost track of each other.

I remember another Christmas in Sta. Mesa that I spent crying. I don’t know why. I think my grandmother sent me to pick up her sister and her husband, who I called Daddy. Running over I fell and had wounded knees. That set me off bawling and I could not stop. I remember spending the rest of that Christmas day on my Daddy’s lap, smelling the perfume on his neck. I loved the scent of my Daddy.

Then there are no more really big Christmas memories. We moved out of Sta. Mesa, away from my grandmother and her friends. My mother and I lived together in an apartment on M. H. del Pilar. I don’t think I had any happy Christmases there. From there I got married and became a parent. Then Christmas became work, something I had to do for the children, something that had to be big and wonderful and a big job for mother.

But then there were those lunches when the children were grown and I used to have when I would roast a chicken and set the table nicely. We would have wine and fruit and chestnuts and fruitcake with queso de bola. There would be a lot of lively conversation and laughter. We would be happy.

But our happiest Christmas as a family was in 1987 in Burlingame, where we then lived. Panjee and I went out to buy a Christmas tree and we struggled to carry it into the house, giggling and squealing as we half-carried, half-dragged that beautiful tree. My son Gino was with us for Christmas that year and my daughter Sarri was flying in from New York. My daughter Risa would be joining us for Christmas Eve.   And, of course, my mother was there, living with me, without her Alzheimer’s Disease.

At around nine that night, before my one and only grandson Powie fell asleep, his parents and Gino connived on how Santa would give him his gift. Gino went out and banged loudly on the door, then he ran quickly back in through the terrace. Powie and his dad opened the door and there stood a big red car for Powie, one that he could drive himself. You should have seen his face. His eyes lit up. He looked around for Santa. Everyone said they had seen him. Didn’t Powie see him? Well, anyway he left you his gift.

How lovely that one Christmas was. It is unsurpassed in my memory. My children were all there. My mother was there, too. Now things have changed. We are not all lunching together but on different days. Everyone has a commitment here or there. But we will have lunch together on Christmas Eve and then I will lunch with those who cannot come Christmas Eve on Christmas Day. 

Christmas on installment, a whole new way of life, but a good life, anyway. It makes room for everyone’s wishes, everyone’s departures, everyone’s requirements. It’s the new Christmas. I am not tiring myself out anymore. I am grandmother now. I play a purely decorative role in the season’s festivities. Nevertheless I look forward to their company and am happy to sit and break bread with all of them around on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.