Homemade Christmas

After surviving a week of having a “home-made” Christmas, I’ll no longer trust Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray next time they say that “homemade” stuff are easy. Homemade may be “easy” if you can buy all your materials at the country store, but not if you have to do everything from scratch.

But having done what I set out to do, chances are I will (God-willing) do it all over again next year, and certainly with better preparation and perhaps a little more flair.

To be quite honest, I was, according to my wife, my usual self at the coming of the holidays. While I used to love Christmas and New Year, things have never been as innocent and as fun the minute I entered into the adult world where gift giving became a practice more than a joy as in the joy of giving.

But more than the protest against materialism, I came to realize that the reason Christmas has not been as joyous for all of us as it used to be, is because many of the “markers” or signs of Christmas were not there.

While some radio DJs tried to beat each other in terms of who played the first Christmas songs in July, the same jokers did not deliver or had the moral courage to play Christmas songs when it came time to do so. There used to be a time when ALL you could hear on your radio were Christmas songs especially in December. But now very little airtime is being given to Christmas carols.

It’s sad to know that AM stations were more interested in the Senate investigations to nowhere than in producing and airing timely messages about the importance of Christmas, of prayer and of family. If only for this mortal sin, the KBP should be dissolved! It was sad to hear announcers more interested in plugging and voicing their premiums or commercials than promoting the festive occasion.

Of course there were other problems; most companies cut back on displays, lighting and nativity scenes, most people got their 13th month pay so most of the shopping was done last minute, and instead of getting primed by media to go out and enjoy Christmas, most of us got smothered by the prophets of gloom and doom.

I eventually got out of the funk by setting up the trusted old iPOD and blasted away with Christmas songs. Music was just as effective as an anti-depressant. Our good old “made-in-Roxas blvd” white Christmas tree served us well for two years, but it was time to part ways. My wife and daughter did the rounds at the mall looking for a Silver Christmas tree as I requested, but could not find one. I don’t know if the level of difficulty was a subliminal scheme of the Grinch in me, but the outcome was inevitable. I tried to look for an acceptable Christmas tree but the thought of buying a P6,000 Christmas tree was just contrary to my newly acquired trait of frugality. So without hesitation I put in P500 into our trusty Revo and drove off to Lipa where I picked out a nice “Baguio Pine tree”, one of the many we planted about 12 years ago.

Just like they do in the US, we cut off the top, rolled it in a sack and brought home our own genuine Christmas tree. It’s actually the third one we’ve harvested and it has been good for the trees especially in windy situations.

The next part of our homemade Christmas was making our own parols or lanterns. This I realized was not as easy as it used to be. Back in my younger days, getting bamboo for parol and cannons was never a problem. You simply go to several dealers along EDSA. Not anymore. The closest I remember was somewhere in Taguig and the stripped bamboos they sell are obviously old stock or rejects.

Fortunately we also have a clump of bamboo trees in Lipa, so I had a couple of trees cut, spliced and shaved to make six-foot parols. Modern supplies make life easy with PVA glue or Elmer’s glue instead of the rice we used to mash for paste.  

But once you start messing around with the “Papel de Japon” or rice paper, you soon discover the meaning of fragile, the art of patience, and uttering’s that replaces profanity! I re-learned that colored Papel de Japon is always twice as strong as the white version. I did my red parol in about 40 minutes but the white took me about four hours. Next year I will once again use white…white fiberglass!

In the end, I found immense pleasure and great pride as we lit up one red and one white parol on each floor of our house. There is great satisfaction knowing your Christmas tree came from seedlings you planted and that the parols were homemade just like in the old days. Even our gifts were mostly homemade apple crumble pies and bags that the girls made in the Arts and Crafts room.

This Christmas my family and I would like to wish you the best of all things homemade. May God bless you with a homemade family built on love, hard work, commitment and determination. May you have pride and great joy in showing to the world what a wonderful homemade family you have.

God Bless you. May He grant your wishes this Christmas. May you come to know of his faithfulness and love.

Merry Christmas.