Every year Christmas comes to Christendom in unerring certainty. Symbolized by the Christ child, Christmas is for children. However, this red-letter day is likewise shared by the elders, for among them there would always be the feeling and thoughts of childhood and the children in them.
Christmas for many of us, is the storehouse of our memories in our age of innocence annually recovered in nostalgic rituals. The elders of today were the children of yesterday, and as children before, they viewed Christmas as a symbol of good and considered that love of other would endure.
When we were kids in the somnolent barrio nestled in the natural elegance and charm of a forested hill, we knew that Christmas would come in perfect certainty. When December approached, we would feel and sniff the pure cool air as the night would become longer. By the roadsides and gardens, red poinsettia leaves would appear, a placid acceptance of children’s granite faith that Christmas was indeed on its way.
In the cold early morning, the barrio would be at times enveloped by misty fog only to slowly dissipate when the first streak of morning comes. During yuletide, the sky would always be covered with a thin spread of clouds as if it would rain but it was only nature’s way of screening the searing rays of the tropical sun making the barrio climate ideal for work and enjoyment.
As we walked to the barrio school with delight, we felt for the first time that the whole place was clothed in Arcadian beauty. The leaves of the trees seemed to glisten as wafts of cool breeze fanned our tanned faces.
The anticipation of Christmas would change our outlook on what we used to see a thousand times. We would notice the radiance of moonlight, and the grass around us suffused with vaporous moist in the morning. We would get the thorny holy vines growing in the ponds for decoration together with the small colorful lanterns we made for classroom décor.
December would also be harvest time. We could smell the fragrance of the ripening grains in the fields as work crews arrive for the big rice harvest. There would also be bullock carts filled with out-of-town native crafts which would be bought for cash or barter. The early misa de gallo would usher the countdown of Yule, that in nine days it would be Christmas day. The young and old would brave the early morning chill to attend church service. After each mass, the children knew that Christmas would be a day nearer.
The ninth misa de gallo would be moved earlier, about eleven on the night of the eight day, the 24th of December. That mass on Christmas Eve, called misa cantada would be long and would end exactly on the midnight birth of Christ. As if borne by the wind of Christmas, we, the children would rush home to greet our folks and enjoy the goodies awaiting us.
On Christmas day, we would wear our best clothes and visit our close relatives, or ninongs and ninangs, kiss their hands and in return, we would be given goodies, fruits and coins. In a group, we would have brunch in the house where we would be overtaken by noon lunch. But with so many goodies we had eaten, we could hardly enjoy the enticing food on the Christmas table.
Before twilight, we would be home tired but well-fed and happy and straight to bed.
Today, the bliss of Christmas has not changed in the barrio of old but people did change. The market economy has commercialized everything in the daily life of people. Money or what it can buy had changed people, reminding me of the old Arab proverb “Money is Magic!”
But Christmas, to me, is still the real magic.