CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

• One time, while standing outside the church for the Christmas Eve Mass (the church is always jampacked!), my sisters and I looked up the sky and thought we saw Santa’s sled shimmering down as it brought gifts onto our village. When we went home, my grandpa, who was living with us at the time, denied seeing Santa, despite the fact that Santa’s gifts were already under the tree when we got home.
• My sisters and I used to have identical frilly dresses when we were kids, ribbons, shiny shoes, white knee-high stockings and all. We’d troop to the other side of the metro to go to my grandparents’ houses in Obando and Malabon, where there’d be lots of food and a little aguinaldo waiting for us.
• One time, while playing in the bukid (farmland) behind my lola’s house, I almost drowned. I slipped on the mossy step that led into a balon (well) filled with kangkong. Luckily, I was rescued by some farmers nearby while I was floundering and looking at how kangkongs grew.
• Going home from Christmas one year, the traffic was just horrible! Bumper to bumper, and it took hours to get home. From that time on, I’ve never been able to sleep while aboard the car anymore, dangit!
• Back when I was a kid, seeing and going to the Big Bang sa Alabang meant that it was Christmas.
• We loved going to C.O.D. and to Ever Monumento to see their lovely, larger-than-life Christmas scenes display. We were so awed by how they looked!
• Some of my more memorable gifts include: a plastic playhouse tent that we assembled A LOT, a play coffee pot that kept refilling itself with coffee after you poured the contents out, a Beverly Hills 90210 filofax that made me squeal with delight when I unwrapped it (I was a big fan, oh yeah), my Pooh bear stuffed toy that had a silver necklace inside it from you-know-who.
• Up until last year, all three of us (my sisters, I mean), still received gifts from Santa Claus. Will we still get them this year? Abangan.

Care to share some of your Christmas memories?