Childhood Christmas memories

The start of Christmas in the Philippines officially starts with the Misa de Gallo which is celebrated on the early mornings fromt the 16th of December to the 24th. Decorations are put up early and radio stations start playing Christmas music in October! It is a tradition to have a parol (Christmas lantern). It is a star shaped lantern made of bamboo and tissue art paper. Nowadays they are elaborate and made of capiz shells and other materials. They are hung on the windows of homes.

Christmas trees are branches of trees painted white and decorated with ornaments. There is not a lot of pine trees in the country, Now they have artificial trees like we have in North America.

Now that Christmas is almost here, I have been thinking a lot about Christmases when I was a child. What was the tradition we grew up with? As far as I can remember, we never spent Christmas eve nor Christmas day in our own home. It was always spent at my maternal grandparents home.

We would leave our house in the afternoon of Christmas eve and drive to my grandparents lugging all the presents. There we would put all the presents under the tree and then play with all the cousins. There is light dinner and the big meal is at midnight which we call Noche Buena. Sometimes the younger kids are asked to take a nap and will be awakened before midnight.

While the younger ones are asleep, the aunts and Lola (grandmother) would be preparing the meal. In the Philippines, Christmas dinner always consists of ham and queso de bola (cheese). It would not be Christmas without it. Then there are side dishes, macaroni salad, potato salad, shrimp dishes and whaterve else goes with ham. One of my aunts liked to have homemade hot chocolate.

At midnight, one of the uncles dressed up as Santa and distributed the presents. Sometimes we are asked to sing to get the presents. I do not sing even if my life depended on it. One year I remember I just will not sing and I did not care whether I got my presents or not. I did not get it for a while until later on in the morning. To this day, I have resented one of my uncles for having done this.

By Christmas day, our family will be off to my father's side of the family, where we would stay until late in the afternoon. The same thing happens although the tradition there is much simpler. By the time we get home, it would be Christmas evening and we would be so tired.

Then New Year|s eve is spent with my father's side of the family/ I also remember that we would also celebrate Three Kings. We would get presents as well and my father would make it appear that the Three kings were there by leaving foot prints on the screens of our bedroom windows.

When we moved to Canada, my parents continued that tradition. The menu changed and we had turkey and ham. When I got married, I started my own tradition with my kids but kept the midnight meal although it is just appetizers and we had the main meal on Christmas day.

In the last few years, I have celebrated Christmas by myself and still continue to have the Christmas eve midnight meal even if I only have chicken wings, a salad, a drink. To me it is not Christmas without that.

Do you have a Christmas tradition you had when you were younger and do you still do it today? Or what something special do you do on Christmas eve/day?