What were your happiest and loneliest Christmases?

I normally start putting up the Christmas decorations in my home as early as November. But, just for this year, to get that Christmas spirit going I wanted to put up the tree as early as October. It was my kids who reminded me that there was still Halloween to celebrate. So I waited until November to fill our home with the season’s decor. Christmas is always a special time for me because when I was growing up my parents made sure that we had a grand time during the season. Today, I just love listening to Christmas carols and remembering the happy Christmases of my youth. Now that I am a mother I am thrilled when I see my kids getting excited over the gifts they have under the tree and at the same time getting excited over that special day of Christ’s birth.

Christmas will always be a happy season for me. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones, because for some people the season is also a time of loneliness – even when they are not alone.

Tarlac Rep. Noynoy Aquino: They seem to be all the same. Year in and year out, I tend to be depressed come Christmas time.

Joanne O. Lorenzana, managing partner, Global Events Synergy: Happiest Christmas? I’m looking forward to this year, because a very special person in my life will be visiting me this Christmas! And I find that an awesome gift in itself and I’m praying that this gift will be cherished forever. This must be the reason for the joy of the season – finding meaning and expressions of love and seeing them in someone and also in ourselves.

Loneliest Christmas? Christmas of 2001, I was in the US celebrating the day away from my family for the first time – it was tough. I missed the noise, fun and endless chika and food and the highly festive spirit that fills every Filipino home during the holdiays.

Charlene Gonzales-Muhlach, TV host, Feel at Home: One of my happiest Christmases was last year when I celebrated Christmas with my whole family. But what made it most special was that Aga and I were husband and wife and we had the twins with us.

I am loneliest when my family is not together on Christmas day.

Baby Cruz, consultant, Jewelmer/chairperson, Frank Provost: My happiest Christmas was the birth of my first grandson Javier and my second happiest Christmas was the birth of my second grandson Mateo.

I really don’t have any lonely Christmas. I find Christmas such a festive season because of all the preparations. But of course there are years that are less happy than the others like the first Christmas after my mother Pacita, and husband Jesse passed away. I was sad because of the changes not only in my life but in the lives of my two children.

Carla Tengco, homemaker: My happiest Christmas was December 1996 when Al and I got married and my saddest Christmas was when my mom passed away in December 1991.

Alice Dixson, actress: This year will be my loneliest. All my family will be abroad. But the happiest was when I was in New York in 1977, growing up. Another happy one was in the ’90s, the year Robert my brother was born.

Mike Planas, public servant/businessman: There wasn’t actually any lonely Christmas for me until I see my environment – seeing our less fortunate brothers having no food to eat and not being able to afford to buy even a small parol for their homes. However, I still try to condition myself to have a Merry Christmas in spite of all these.

Of course, every Christmas, we’re all in a happy mood. But it was when I became a father in 1998, and every year after that, that it became more specialseeing all my kids happy because Christmas is really for them.

Pepper Teehankee, writer, photographer: Christmas has always been a happy occasion for me, it’s a time for family and friends to get together to celebrate the birth of Christ. I’m lucky enough not to have had a sad Christmas.