Our 2011 Christmas Celebration

Our Happy Birthday cake for Jesus. Jeremy, my nephew bought it


Our Christmas dinner table. We all did our bit. Merle did all salads and fish spring rolls, Cyn cooked noodles while her husband Rene glazed the ham, Daisy cooked the fish and prawns while I made the vegetarian spring rolls.



My sisters and I



Mum and us





Us with Mum and my brother Art



Brett's (with purple wrapper) and Pearl's gifts to me


As a kid, I got so thrilled as early as October because I know it wouldn't be long and I could already smell the scents of Christmas season: halaya, Christmas chocolate and pinipig.

Then when it was already December, I used to begin counting the number of sleeps (I still sort of do up to this day!) away till my most-awaited day comes, not December 25 which is regarded to be Christmas day, but the eve of this day.

What was so special about Christmas Eve then? This was the special night when we as a family gather together to pray, sing and eat a special meal which we called Noche Buena. For me this meant a table of festive foods, lighted candles, flickering colourful lights on our Christmas tree and of course as always a brightly coloured and lighted parol (a lantern). It also meant singing Christmas carols and exchanging gifts.

The most memorable moments in our celebrations were the times when we just turned off all the lights except for the lights on our Christmas tree as we sang Christmas carols with lighted candles helping us read the lyrics of Christmas carols we do not know by heart.

When I became a committed Christian and also my other siblings, Christmas had a deeper meaning in my heart. It meant more than foods, gifts and Christmas carols. It meant God’s giving to us the greatest gift He had ever given not only to us but to the whole world, His only begotten Son, Jesus. In His great love for us, Jesus, in His full deity, became a man and was born to an earthly virgin woman.


Christmas is the birthday of Jesus. If it was His birthday, then we should also lit candles for Him. Consequently my siblings and I all agreed we should include on our Noche Buena table a cake with an inscription “Happy birthday Jesus.” From that moment on, this became our tradition year after year.

24 December 2011, our Christmas Eve celebration was pretty much the same, except that some of our siblings and families were not with us, but in addition, however, we have our niece and nephews and their special someone and also other friends.


We did not sing Christmas carols, but we have Christmas songs played all throughout the celebration. I wish we did. But it was okay. Anyway, my father was not here anymore to sing the bass part. My two brothers were not around as well as their families. Besides, I had accepted that Christmas celebration could never be the same ever and so there was not any point to have any sentimiento de azucar. Times change. In fact there were Christmases that it had only been my younger siblings and I that we had decided not to have noche buena but gave away food to the poor (in our efforts to get a pat on our shoulders from God).

Some of our guests were preoccupied with their own interests. The younger generations were playing games, others having their own conversations. Interestingly enough (thanks to present-day technology!), we talked on skype with Nimrod and his daughter JA who were in another state in Australia. We wanted to talk to Rommel and his family too, but the time difference deterred us from doing so.


Overall, our celebration had been good!

Kindred Spirit

I was pleasantly surprised when I got a Christmas card from Rey Ignacio Diaz and family. Rey was our class valedictorian when we were in high school. As imaginative as I was, I thought from hindsight how I could have felt if he had sent me a card during our high school days. My! He was the brightest and the most popular student in our class then and I probably admired him subconsciously. I could not be definite that I admired him consciously because I had learned to suppress my emotions then in compliance to my father's rule--books first, boys last. Oops, but I was not hundred percent compliant. No, I did not fell for any of my classmates as commanded but with the man next door (and my father knew it!). This man looked like Mike Nesmith to me and whose business was renting out comics. So needless to say, I became an avid comic reader which necessitated me to wear prematurely a pair of eyeglasses. Unfortunately however, he did not have his eyes on me, but on the older girl next door with whom he eloped eventually! Waah...COL! (Cried out loud)!I spent my Klem biscuits and Sarsapilla money on his stupid comics and he eloped with someone else? My father, knowing how broken-hearted I was took me and my other siblings to the park, bought us ice cream and I was back on track.

Before I could wildly imagine a story byline, a few days later, I got a card which says on the envelope from Mr David Rigg. My goodness! Brett would surely wonder who this is! I won't because I know perfectly this was from Lorna Canlas who is married to Mr Rigg whom I have not met (but have seen him now only in picture). So that's why Petty, another kindred spirit, asked for my home address. Mmm. It was good I did not have reservation to give it to her. I normally would not for security reasons. Having been reconnected with my high school classmates is one of the beautiful thing that the cyberspace has given me. I did not have much memorable interactions with them then, because I was extremely shy and insecure. It is in fact like getting to know them better in a much more beautiful level: Petty, Haydee,Myr, Amor,Dollih, Sally Fe,Lita, Edith, Loida,Evelyn, Rick, Chito, Manny, Edison (nice name. He reminds me of Thomas Edison) and many more. One thing remarkable, nevertheless, is that unbreakable connection. We technically grew up together in the same neighbourhood and in the same primary and secondary school. We probably have equivalent ideals and aspirations so we could always pick up from where we left off. I thank God for them. They add new dimension and colour in my life. I thank Rey and Lorna for the cards which will now be part of my precious memorabilia. I'm sorry for being slack because I still have not drop them a line to say thank you in a personal way nor send a card. But I know I will be forgiven, anyway.

The Joy of Answered Prayer

When I was new in the faith, the pastor said that God answers prayers in three ways: Yes, No and Wait. He also talked about the joy of answered prayer. I thought to myself then, indeed there would be joy if God’s answer was Yes. What about if God’s answer was a No and Wait?


I think it is fair to say that I have done a lot praying through the years since I became a Christian and have been hoping since then to learn the secret to the joy of answered prayer.


As Jesus taught the disciples, I normally direct my prayers to the Heavenly Father. Although I should confess that I have also prayed to Jesus directly—heaps of times,even more when I was in the grade school. Simply because the teacher had taught me then that Jesus was my friend and because He was my friend, I had talked to Him a lot of times.


As I grew in my faith and in the knowledge of the Bible, I have often prayed now to the Heavenly Father (and of course still talk to Jesus). This is what the Bible teaches and it is also written there that we ask all things in Jesus name, ie as there is power in His Name.





In Jesus Name, lame walks, blind sees, mute speaks and deaf hears. And in my case, He healed me of the many scary nodes that the ultrasound revealed on my thyroid gland. How could I ever thank Him for delivering me for the fear of going through a surgery.


I am almost inclined to think then that In Jesus Name was like a period to every prayer. Hence, in a corporate prayer, everyone else say Amen when the leader or the last one to pray say In Jesus Name. I found out later in my own personal prayer that it was not so.


As I pray, I find myself oftentimes saying In Jesus Name even if I am not necessarily ending my prayer. I wondered then why I do this all the time. I wondered also why I just sigh or cry not being able to say a word when I am in prayer. My wondering stopped when I came across what is written in Romans 8:26-27, NIV



In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.


God has a will for me or everyone else in heaven, Jesus taught the disciples to pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will for us in heaven is for us to have hope and a future. He does not plan for us a calamity. His plan for us is to be joyful, successful and prosperous (Jeremiah 29:11). His will and his plan for us, if I could say it, is already written in heaven. My long-time question then was why do I still have to pray?

Without being doctrinal, it is His command for us to pray. In my on-going relationship with God, I came to realise, talking or praying to Him is a natural course of friendship. When i accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord, I became God’s friend. Who on the earth would not want to talk to his friend? Also, I have realised in a personal way that God wants me to experience the joy of answered prayer. If I do not pray, how could I ever know this joy.

Indeed God has given me this many times and in many ways that I could literally even jump and dance because for joy because He has answered my prayers.

Thank you, God. Bless you Jesus. Holy Spirit thank you for being here.