The best Christmas show

Whew! That was one long Yuletide season — ending only during last Sunday’s Feast of the Epiphany.

But way before the start of the dawn masses (simbang gabi), members of both print and TV media were already having a merry time listing down the Christmas movies even from decades past.

What? No listing for television?

The reason is obvious. On TV, you are only as good as your last episode.

But wait. With the changing entertainment landscape — with TV being the medium of the moment — hit television drama series both on Channels 2 and 7 are already being sold on DVD today.

One Maalaala Mo Kaya feature that deserves to be immortalized on DVD for future generations is its Stroller episode that was aired last Dec. 24. It has a lot of Christmas touch to it and even shares a cornucopia of insights on life and adoption.

The story of Stroller revolves around a middle-class family with Tommy Abuel and Coney Reyes as a couple with grown and responsible children.

While they have nothing to complain about their kids, Coney begins hurting because her brood seems to be flying out the coop in succession. While they all still live in the family home, it is obvious that Tommy and Coney will soon be ending up with an empty nest.

And then via the Share-a-Home program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), they had a baby girl spending the holiday season with them. Conceptualized in the mid-’70s, this project enabled the family to keep the infant with them for a few weeks.

The children, however, didn’t want to part with the little bundle of joy anymore — an idea opposed by Coney, who had valid reasons: She couldn’t imagine herself changing diapers again after having done that chore for her children. Maybe it would have been different had the girl been her own grandchild. What about rearing the kid and molding her to become a good citizen of this world?

That’s lesson No. 1: Mothers know best and taking in a child from an institution is not like buying a hamster from the pet shop. You don’t only feed this young human being. There are other responsibilities attached to parenting and today’s young generation should be told that to avoid unwanted pregnancy.

Coney didn’t want the baby in their care because she didn’t want to get attached to the child, who would — like her own kids — grow up and leave the nest. Hubby Tommy points out to her lesson No. 2: That will always be the cycle of human life. You would be such a selfish parent if you try to keep your brood attached to you forever.

As the story progresses, the viewer also discovers the very complicated and taxing steps foster parents have to undergo if they want to follow the legal way of adoption.

And on to lesson No. 3: Let us not be quick to judge parents who decide to give away their children. They are not necessarily bad and irresponsible parents. The mother of the baby being adopted by Coney’s family was a loving mom, except that extreme poverty and illness forced her to give up the child — even if a great part of her died with that decision.

Another valuable lesson imparted in Stroller is Coney’s attempt to give the child’s mother a livelihood — and not dole-outs. Do not give the poor fish, but teach them how to fish.

Stroller is layered and the lessons it tries to share are innumerable — perhaps more than the calories you gained in your last noche buena feast.

This episode even goes into little details — like you cannot hide the truth forever even from young children. When their adopted kid gets to school age, she realizes early on that she is different from the other children in the family. While all of them are fair, her skin tone is several shades darker than the rest. Even at such tender age, she becomes aware that she is not like the others.

At one point, the child rebels, but she realizes that with all the love, affection, kindness and understanding her adoptive family showers on her, she knows she is in a better situation there than with her own biological mother. She proves to be a wise and grateful child after all.

Now 15 years old, she happily turned out to be a loving daughter — appreciative of all the benefits she enjoyed living with her foster family.

 We can only hope that she and her folks are fine as you read this because the setting is in Cagayan de Oro. This episode we can imagine was done prior to Typhoon Sendong.

The Lord surely must be protecting them because they are a very prayerful family with the proper Christian values.

Aired at the peak of that season of supposed joy — but despair for the people of Mindanao, the Stroller episode of Maalaala Mo Kaya is like a Christmas tree trimmed with valuable lessons that we may apply in life at any other time of the year and not necessarily just during Yuletide.