It used to be that the Christmas season was windy and cold in my barrio of Gulod. It was the season when every waking moment was greeted with dews wending down the wide leaves of gabi in our backyard. It was the time of the year when the nectar of the santan flowers was juiciest and sweetest. Tigre and Dogman, our aspins in the late ‘70s, were slow to move or wake up in the morning because of the conducive weather. Roosters crowed late in the day, or was it just in my mind? Even when the sun was up, the nippy weather still prevailed. The rays of the sun were unsuccessful in thawing my sleepy body from jumping out of the bamboo bed.
Come Christmas Day, the temperature would drop even lower but residing inside of me, when I was a kid, was an excitement enough to keep me warm. My brothers and I would wake up to the appetizing aroma of sopas (chicken macaroni soup) being whipped up by our mother in our small kitchen. As early as 5 in the morning, after we kissed the hands of our parents, which they would answer with “Salamat at sinapit na naman tayo ng isang maligayang Pasko,†we would have our sopas Christmas breakfast. We felt already blessed if we also had sliced bread on the table. Doubly blessed if there was Star Margarine. That was already heaven.
Breakfast would be quick. The poso (deep well) at the back of our house would be the next scene of revelry among my brothers and me. Time to take a bath and our parents taught us never ever to take a shower on an empty stomach because, as Tatay explained it, “baka malamigan ang mga sikmura n’yo.†Since it was very cold, bathing time for five of us brothers would be quick.
Christmas for us was the moment we became super heroes. I would always be Superman because that was the design of the new shirt my Nanay bought for me at the mercado (dry market) in Cabuyao. It was such an experience to be walking around Gulod in the company of my brothers who became Batman, Robin, Voltes V and Mazinger Z during Christmas. It would always be our elder brothers who would have a new pair of long pants or short pants and shoes. The younger siblings would just be delighted with hand-me-down shoes from them. And if the old pair of shoes was still bigger than my feet, our innovative mother would roll some paper and stick it inside each shoe.
Then off we went on Christmas hopping from one house of our relatives to the next. But before leaving the house, we would get a rundown of reminders from our father. “Hold hands when you cross the street,†he would always tell us in the vernacular. To this day, my brothers and I have never forgotten to hold each other’s hand when we cross the streets of life’s challenges.
The whole stretch of Gulod would be filled with kids dressed in their Christmas best, ready to go to the houses of their ninongs and ninangs (godparents). We would also knock at the doors of our neighbors who would delightfully open their homes to us. We kissed the hands of our elder relatives and waited to be given the aguinaldo (gift). The aguinaldo would come in the form of coins. To receive “limang pisong papel†(five pesos) was already big deal. There were also wrapped gifts but there were very few of them.
When our pockets were already bursting with coins, it was time to go home. Happiness would clearly be written on our faces. A sumptuous lunch of pork nilaga, with patis, calamansi and sili on the side, would be waiting for us at home. He who had the most aguinaldo would get an extra slice of meat or camote (sweet potato) in the nilaga dish. Over simple lunch, we would share stories, we would share happiness, we would share love.
Siesta followed suit after lunch. Nanay would lull us to sleep with Christmas carols in Tagalog. If Tatay was not busy preparing his signature adobong buto-buto in the kitchen for our early Christmas dinner, he would join our mother in singing us some lullabies. Their sweet voices would usher us to dreamland. The nippy wind that blew through the slats of our wooden house helped in making our sleep a restful one.
It would be the sweet aroma of ginatang bilo-bilo that would wake us up. No Christmas would be complete without this dish. To this day.
Now that I am older, I still look at Christmas with the eyes of a kid. I can still feel and taste the Christmas of my childhood. Christmas is still the most wonderful time of the year for the forty-something child in me.
Merry Christmas.
(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)