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!
