Santa and the creature

 

By Thelma Sioson San Juan

 

 

Daddy and Mommy shouldn’t have passed on the credit for gift-giving to Santa Claus. But they did. So my Christmas of very long ago turned into some sort of crash landing.

 

It was three days before Christmas (as mostly every Yuletide story begins), when Mommy asked me what I wanted to ask from Santa Claus. I must have been 5 years old then and about to enter grade one. (Mommy made me skip preschool for she didn’t believe in it. Don’t ask me why. I never asked her myself. What 5-year-old would?)

 

“Piano!” I replied, without any doubt or hesitation.

 

“So hang your socks where Santa can put your gift,” she said.

 

I did, dutifully, and in the next three days, got my mind working on how Santa Claus could make the piano fit into my socks. My belief—more than my imagination—led me to visualizing, which made my anticipation of Santa’s piano so exciting, and stimulating. So many scenarios played in my un-preschooled mind.

 

The night before Christmas, Mommy asked me to sleep earlier than usual, because, she said, Santa Claus avoided homes of kids who were late sleepers.

 

Dutifully, I obeyed—that must have been one of the three times in my life I obeyed Mommy.

 

I kept tossing and turning in bed, could hardly sleep, but kept my eyes closed. I certainly didn’t even want to cast a glance on the socks hanging on my bedroom window. I didn’t want to spook Santa.

 

Late into the night, I turned to face the wall, opened my eyes. To my horror, I was staring at a creature’s hairy face; its eyes, wide open, stared back at me, not menacingly but intently. The face was all hair. I gasped, closed my eyes, never to open them again that night.

 

When I woke up late in the morning, thanks to the midnight apparition, I rushed to the window and grabbed my socks. It didn’t have a piano. Instead there was a P50 bill—too big for a tyke like me then, but smaller than a piano.

 

That Christmas morning made me wonder—why couldn’t Santa follow instructions? That was the first and the last time I would hang my socks on Christmas eve.

 

Who was that midnight creature? I never found the answer.

 

Designer diaper

 

By Lito Zulueta

 

Alongside the blatant materialism of Christmas is its secularization as shown when government officials greet the public with “Happy Holidays.”

 

The neutral greeting is an attempt at desacralization or “desectarianization.” Christ is dropped from the celebration although “holidays,” unbeknownst to the anti-religionists, still contains the word “holy”; which shows how seculars and liberals are averse to anything “Christ”-sounding, never mind if they have no philosophical sophistication or have rather shallow semantic depth. They are literalists of the illiterate sort.

 

So much for political correctness—or is it secular correctness?

 

Anyway, secular authorities’ distaste for religion is suddenly banished when the Muslims celebrate the Eid al-Fitr, or the end of Ramadan, and the Eid al-Adha. Government has been declaring those two days as nonworking holidays for some time now. Apparently government thinks those two days aren’t celebrations of the religious sort.

 

As a corrective to the growing materialism and secularization of Christmas, perhaps it would do well to go to Catholic churches, especially those that celebrate it with taste and not tackiness, with solemnity and not racket.

 

For this writer who lives in Quezon City, two foremost church addresses where Christmas is both aesthetic and solemn are the San Pedro Bautista church in Del Monte and Santo Domingo on Quezon Avenue.

 

At the Franciscan San Pedro Bautista church, the Latin-American-style church is not ancient; it’s really a modern interpretation of the mission house in California back when it was a Spanish Franciscan mission territory and not yet the Anglo-fied “United States.”

 

But the site is ancient; it used to be a Franciscan vacation house, where the sons of Saint Francis sought rejuvenation from their mission labors around Luzon and even Asia.

 

The church remains a Franciscan church; it is the headquarters of the Franciscans in the Philippines and is named after San Pedro Bautista, the Japanese protomartyr who, after his Philippine stint, was, like our very own San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila, martyred in Nagasaki in the 17th century during the Christian persecutions.

 

It was he who built the convent beside the creek in what is now known as San Francisco del Monte, Quezon City. In fact the district is also called Retiro.

 

Of course now, with the din and blare of commerce and urban living, Retiro is hardly a place of rest and retreat. In fact the estuary is now an estero, in Filipino parlance, a dirty, foul creek.

 

It is said to be Saint Francis of Assisi who initiated the “Belen,” or reenactment of the Nativity incident in Bethlehem. San Pedro Bautista church keeps up with its Franciscan roots by coming up with the beautiful Bethlehem tableaux year after year.

 

It is easy to see why Saint Francis found the Bethlehem scene a central metaphor in Christianity. Salvation comes with the incarnation which comes not with pomp and pageantry, not with power and might, but with poverty, simplicity and humility.

 

God becomes man and he comes to the world in the company of shepherd, sheep, ox and the humblest creation. As far as redemption is concerned, it’s back to basics.

 

Perhaps because the real rivals of the Franciscans are the Dominicans, the Santo Domingo church, itself an architectural reworking of the missionary complex like San Pedro Bautista church, sets up usually a bigger and brighter Nativity scene, if only to match the scale and breadth of the church, which is after all the biggest church in Quezon City and one of the largest in the country.

 

Built by National Artist for Architecture José Maria Zaragoza, the church has a vast altar and well-lit proportions that could be seen from outside by motorists passing by.

 

It was built that way by the architect apparently to draw the attention of the hurrying and harried world outside, to bring them into the beauty and splendor of the universal church inside.

 

Everything about the altar and its liturgical décor is enormous and massive: The Advent candle that the priest lights up at the start of the Christmas season is the biggest there is; it is especially made for the church.

 

So immense is it that the flame never seems to consume the tallow and the candle’s towering height never seems to diminish.

 

But the liturgical aesthetics is balanced by heartfelt symbolism (or what I may call “sacramentalism”).

 

On the last Sunday before Christmas, the Dominican priest asks parents to bring their children to the altar after the Mass so he can sprinkle them with holy water. Perhaps because liturgical design hasn’t kept up with the times, the priest uses what looks like a water gun to douse the mob of eager kids with the blessed fountain. So much for aesthetics.

 

On Christmas day, the friars bring out images of the Infant Jesus on the manger for Catholics to kiss after the Mass. Suddenly even the massiveness of the church is dwarfed by the Child Jesus, so fragile in its naked poverty.

 

Asked what would be the most striking passage in the whole Holy Scriptures, a biblical scholar replied, “That’s easy,” and proceeded to quote the Bethlehem incident from the Marian chronicles of Luke: “She wrapped the child in swaddling clothes.”

 

Born amid humble creation and even destitution, God immersed himself in abject materiality but transcended it through his sacrifice on the Cross.

 

It is a scandal that the feast celebrating the Incarnation has remained on the level of the material and has failed to transcend it.

 

Christmas has in fact embraced materialism: The Holy Infant’s swaddling clothes have become a designer diaper.

 

Apples

 

By Constantino C. Tejero

 

When we think of Christmas we invariably think of the Christmases of our childhood.

 

There must have been merrier Christmases since, but we inevitably hark back to “those happy days in a halcyon time,” even if there was a war, martial law, typhoon or volcanic eruption going on.

 

I remember the Christmas Eve when we were made to sleep early so we wouldn’t doze off during the Midnight Mass. It was a struggle to get to sleep when you were hearing carolers on the front yard.

 

In time for dressing up, we would awaken to find a plate laden with apple, grapes, walnut, that Mother had placed at each bedside while we were sleeping.

 

Walnut in its shell was mysterious to us. One brother, thinking maybe it was an over-caramelized nougat, tried without success to bite into it. A nutcracker was not a kitchen essential then, so we cracked the impossible nut between the rift of the bedroom door.

 

Apples were available only during the Christmas season, so a kid could have only an apple or two for the year. Otherwise, you’d find it only on the fruit salad, diced.

 

I particularly remember the time Father brought home a big box of Washington apples and we didn’t know what to do with them. We were in a tizzy playing bowling with them on the floor, or just lining them up on the window ledge. The whole house was redolent of their fragrance, and that’s how I associated Christmas—with the scent of apples.

 

The Midnight Mass was a time for the whole community to meet up in its Sunday best. We kids would troop together to church properly attired and return home also together; otherwise you’d be considered a black sheep, or you’d miss the sheer delight in the scrambling for the opening of gifts.

 

I don’t remember much the gifts we were getting then, except for a basketball an elder brother got; trike for a kid brother; battery-powered machine-gun giving off streaks of light and a rattling noise for another; magnetic chessboard, stamp album, How and Why Wonder Books for some others; zoo set for the youngest; an ocean liner with elaborate machinery for me.

 

Everyone got plastic toy soldiers and paper balloons. We’d play football and volleyball with those multicolor balloons all over the place till daybreak, careful not to break the ceramic vase on the center table and the glass panels of the china cabinet.

 

On Christmas morning, we’d tie white handkerchiefs with strings onto our toy soldiers, and from the second-floor window we’d toss them even higher above, and watch them drifting on the breeze and slowly wafting down to the ground, like parachutists aiming for an invasion. And that’s why Christmas for me evokes an ethereal feeling, that sense of always floating on top of the world.

 

Those kinds of toys are now gone, kids are no longer obliged to attend the Midnight Mass, the carolers are on YouTube, and apples can be had the whole year round.

 

Jackson 5, Fiesta Carnival

 

By Vangie Baga-Reyes

 

As a kid growing up in the busy, narrow streets of Sta. Cruz, Manila, I knew it was Christmastime when I’d see that big, familiar object hanging from a corner of our dining room ceiling: the leg of ham.

 

It dangled conspicuously right above our old white Frigidaire that stood as a divider between the kitchen and dining area. Whichever corner of the house you stood, you saw it hovering above and constantly staring at you like the mysterious all-seeing eye.

 

Because our house was small, you always caught a glimpse of it when you walked past the bathroom door. It was on the corner of your eye when you watched television from the living room.

 

It was also the first object that greeted you when you descended the stairs from the second floor.

 

The leg of ham was about an arm’s length long, beautifully wrapped, as I remember it, in manila paper and secured in bright-red nylon fishnet or stockings.

 

It was the traditional Chinese pork ham that’s typically dry-cured and super salty, purchased in Quiapo.

 

I didn’t care back then what day or time of the year it was, but as soon as I’d see the leg of ham securely positioned where it was every single time, I knew the happy season was about to begin in my young life. The time to spread good cheer had come once again. Christmas was in the house!

 

Our home suddenly brightened up. The air was lighter, the mood sweeter.

 

I got to see my parents at home more often than usual. There was more of good-natured bantering among my parents, me and my three other siblings.

 

Music—yup, that Jackson 5 Christmas album included—was played all day long on the turntable.

 

The curtains were changed, too, from pale off-white lace cover to a solid red floral curtain painstakingly crocheted by my mom on her free time.

 

I felt rich as there were always apples and oranges, bread and biscuits on the table; and when I opened the fridge, more food was stored, like fruitcakes, fruit salad, eggs.

 

Relatives and my parents’ friends and officemates came and went and brought more food to the house.

 

I got excited all the time. I couldn’t wait to be told to dress up to go to Fiesta Carnival in Cubao in the afternoon and watch the moving mannequins at C.O.D. in the evening. How I loved that my dad hoisted me on his shoulders to see all the action.

 

On Christmas Eve, the leg of ham was finally brought down and stripped of its cover. Using a long, sharp knife, my mom started to cut around the bone, then sliced off pieces of meat. It was never baked or grilled.

 

Instead, the meat was rolled in white sugar then fried to perfection. (Diabetes was farthest from our minds back then.)

 

The star of the meal was served alongside my mom’s special pancit canton, fried chicken and jumbo hotdogs. I can’t remember how long our dinner lasted, but I vividly recall the warmth, bliss and overflowing happiness and security I got from my family.

 

But, of course, the season had to end. The moment I saw the ham down to the bone—which my mom would later use as stock to make a hearty cream soup with macaroni—I knew the happiest of seasons would soon be over.

 

And then I’d look forward to the next one.

 

The telegram

 

By Anne A. Jambora

 

Long before e-mail was invented, back in the days before the dizzying world of hypertext links interfered with our lives, there was the telegram. I used to send my mom one just before Christmas Day.

 

I was seven when I started writing letters to my mom, leaving notes on her nightstand just before my bedtime. They were not musings about my day, but a series of appeals for an allowance raise that I defended by listing down the current prices of snacks in the school cafeteria.

 

Since my mom was born on Dec. 24, I also started writing her a birthday/Christmas note, sneaking up into my parents’ bedroom just before she woke up.

 

The following year, I felt I had to level up, so the birthday note now came with handpicked flowers.

 

Soon the tiny bunch of handpicked flowers was upgraded to roses. I’d be riding my bike at the crack of dawn so I could buy them fresh from a neighbor’s garden, quickly arrange them in a vase, tiptoe into my parents’ bedroom, and prop it on the nightstand.

 

And then the telegram came.

 

My enterprising classmate talked me into it—at 40 centavos per word, the count starting with my mom’s name and address. That was quite extravagant, but it was, at that time, an amazing piece of technology I could not resist.

 

But it was hard trimming down what I wanted to say. I was then 10, on a schoolgirl’s budget, and this was pre-Twitter age, when people hadn’t yet adapted to a 140-character limit.

 

From then on, each Christmas, my telegram would find its place on our tree, sticking out like a sore thumb amid the rows of gorgeous Hallmark greeting cards from my aunts and uncles.

 

A dad!

 

By Pocholo Concepcion

 

After years and years of living on the fast lane, the thought of settling down and siring a child was too remote, if not incredible.

 

But first, there was heartbreaking sadness when my wife suffered a miscarriage three months into her pregnancy in 2007. Deep inside, I assumed it was all my fault, that what caused the stillborn fetus was perhaps my sterility.

 

I found it difficult to allay my fear, after having ingested LSD and other substances back in college and, worst, being promiscuous for many years.

 

I could’ve undergone tests, but shame prevented me from seeing a doctor.

 

Yet optimism was in the air as my wife’s ob-gyn quipped, “Get pregnant again in a month!”

 

I resolved that eating lots of malunggay would do the trick. And so my meals included tinolang manok and ginisang munggo—sprinkled with generous amounts of those sticky leaves that cost P5 a bundle, which I would dutifully peel off their branches almost daily.

 

I also prayed the rosary every night, asking the intercession of the Virgin Mary and Father Patrick Peyton, the Irish priest who founded Family Rosary Crusade, whose Manila office employed me at the time as a TV scriptwriter.

 

If faith could move mountains, I was virtually dancing with delight when my wife tested positive, again, after only a month!

 

The more I turned to God, praying the rosary with greater fervor, asking the biggest favor to give me a healthy baby, and vowing to be a good husband and father.

 

My wife, who was due to give birth in October 2008, started having spasms a month earlier; on doctor’s orders I had to rush her to the hospital in the afternoon of Sept. 15.

 

The hours of waiting outside the delivery room seemed like an eternity; I tried catching a wink while lying down a row of chairs, but tension kept me wide awake.

 

Around 7:30 p.m. a nurse called out my name, telling me to come inside… “Tingnan niyo ho ang baby niyo.”

 

My heart was pumping and I was speechless when the attending doctor brought out my little bundle of joy, who looked so frail that I could hardly move as I held him in my arms.

 

But there was more tension the next day when another doctor told me that the baby had stopped breathing for sometime and needed close monitoring. “Hold his hand,” said the doctor, “he can feel you.”

 

I believe the power of prayer saved him; after a week, he was discharged from the hospital. My wife and I named him PJ, short for Patrick John—after Father Patrick Peyton and my music idol, John Lennon.

 

In the few months before the year ended, my patience was put to the test; waking up at 2 a.m. taxed my nerves as I checked whether PJ was crying for milk, needed a diaper change, or was having a colic episode. One time I gnashed my teeth while whispering, “Hindi ka ba titigil sa kaiiyak, ha, grrrr!”

 

On the other hand, I lost weight and even felt energized after those sleep-deprived nights.

 

On Christmas Day I felt like the happiest, youngest-looking 45-year-old dad in the world.

 

 

Heavy with child–and luck

 

By Belle Bondoc Roberto

 

Christmas is about family. We celebrate Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And we spend it with our families, in our homes, with all our traditions.

 

When I was younger, the holiday season was a flurry of exchange gifts and yummy treats at reunions and family get-togethers—with José Mari Chan’s “Christmas in Our Hearts” playing in the background.

 

My family would hie off to our ancestral home in Pampanga, where my lolo and lola and aunties and uncles from my father’s clan greeted each other in a warm Yuletide embrace.

 

We would attend the traditional Mass, and then gather round the antique dining table, and then step out for more salu-salo excursions to the homes of relatives who lived nearby. We would be welcomed with more food and sweets and drinks. And noche buena was still to come.

 

There would be a lot of gift-giving and entertainment. Each family had to have representatives to do extemporaneous song or dance numbers.

 

In 2008, I was six months pregnant with my son Matthew. My husband and I, with my parents and two younger sisters, went to the reunion despite my delicate condition. And to think I was advised by my doctor to take some bed rest.

 

But there we were at the Christmas reunion. I took part in the parlor games and even won. I’ve never won in any of the raffle draws in parties, but in this particular celebration, I did; if I remember it right, not just once but twice!

 

My lucky charm was the little boy in my womb. It is said that women heavy with child are blessed. In my case, I was literally blessed that day!

 

Today Christmas is all the more meaningful for me because of my son. Christmas is a time for counting blessings. With Matthew, and, of course, my husband, I feel very blessed. Each day, in fact, brings bliss and blessing.