Christmases past

How old I have become! My eldest child is in her late 40s, my youngest is 40. If I had stayed married, we would be approaching our 49th wedding anniversary. I don’t remember our first Christmas but I remember the second, when we had a nine-month-old little girl. We lived in Palm Village then and I decided to make a big Christmas mobile instead of a tree.

I inflated several balloons then covered them with string soaked in a solution of glue and water. Then I let them dry, after which I punctured the balloons and threw them out. I had balls of string, which I spray-painted silver and gold. I hung those up on wooden rods with Christmas balls. Forty-six years ago yet I remember it well.

Then I remember a Christmas in Merville. I wrapped our gifts in silver foil paper tied with gold ribbons. Another one in White Plains where I made gorgeous fuchsia and green sunbursts trimmed with sequins. I have always been a crafts person, always enjoyed making my own decorations, trimming our Christmas trees.

The seventh Christmas after my marriage my children and I spent in a rented haunted house in a seaside compound in Parañaque. We were living with my parents. I had our driver cut the top of a cypress tree in the garden and set it up.

I guess the ritual began after that. My children would go to their father on Christmas Eve leaving me alone to wrap their gifts, fix the house and rest before Christmas morning. I had turned into a working mom who would always come home tired, exhausted before Christmas.

Then I had what I call my housewife break, when we lived in a big beautiful house and had three Christmas trees — one local pine, one foreign fresh tree sent as a gift, and a big Plexiglas tree I had ordered for the front porch. Those were the years when we received wall-to-wall gifts and gave out about as many presents. Those were the years when sometimes I would sleep at 2 a.m. because I was gift-wrapping.

It was in that old rambling house that my life fell apart a second time over the holiday season. I remember a Christmas spent in tears. We went over to a friend’s house for lunch that year because I just could not get Christmas together.

But whatever breaks comes together again. We had so many other celebrations.

The best Christmas for me was in 1987. We were all living in Burlingame, a suburb of San Francisco. My daughter Panjee and I bought a big Christmas tree. I remember dragging it from the garage to the apartment — the shoving, the giggling, the laughing. We finally set it up in a corner of the living room and decorated it.

My daughter Sarri arrived from New York where she was in school. My son Gino came over from Manila to spend Christmas with us. My daughter Risa, her husband Dan and her son Powie, wearing a wonderful red blazer, were all there for Christmas Eve. Close to midnight, Gino and Dan were whispering. Then Gino went out the porch and banged on the front door then came quickly back in again. Dan and Powie opened the door and there stood a big gift box for Powie from Santa Claus. I saw the light go on behind the little boy’s eyes. I will never forget that wonderful Christmas. Even now as I write this my heart twitches.

On Christmas Day I would always rise early to stuff a turkey. My roast turkeys were always adventurous and delicious. I could never repeat the same recipe twice. That was the kind of cook I was — creative, reliant on my imagination and acquired skills. My children always teased me about my inability to cook anything exactly the same way twice. Then we would sit and lunch together. My job was to cook and serve. Then my second daughter Sarri carved. Christmas lunch was my time with my children.

Then in 2003 my mother came home to visit. I saw her and was shocked. She had grown so thin and old and rickety. She had serious Alzheimer’s disease. I had a stroke and everything changed. Christmas lunch seemed to have fallen off the calendar. But slowly I began to spend Christmas Eve at Panjee’s house and woke up early to help in their Christmas festivities. Then I would be brought over to Gino’s house for lunch. Gino seemed to have inherited my talent for roasting delicious turkeys. Last year I remember Nicc, my grandson, Powie’s baby brother who is now 22, was there with me.

This year I will be sleeping over at Panjee’s and will be joining them for Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas Day we will all be going to Gino’s house for lunch. For the first time in many many years my family — those in the Philippines — will be together this Christmas. I hope you can imagine what a joyful occasion it will be for me.

I have one dream for a future Christmas. I wish I could have lunch with my entire family again just like we used to when they were growing up. Just once more. Then I can die happy. I am, after all, growing old.

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