Christmastime...

I like Decembers not because another year will be coming and expecting for a new year (hopeful and enthusiastic) but because the Yuletide spirit is here. What I like about December is the cool Christmas breeze, the music of Christmas carols, the people busy preparing for the holidays and most of all when everybody in my family will celebrate with a big bang together in one place. Usually we celebrate it in our ancestral house. My uncles, aunties and cousins gather, and celebrate Noche Buena together. We share good food, the air filled with music, good laughter and we have our annual exchange of gifts.

Ever since we were kids, my parents have the tradition of putting up Christmas tree, putting Christmas socks for each one of us and decorating the whole house with Christmas decors. At the start of September, my papa and mama makes sure that we enjoy each and everyday until December 25 comes. They put gifts for us in our own socks in the condition that we are good during the day; that we don't fight each other. They make it to the point that we believe in Santa Claus and he is there to give us our wishes only if we are good. True enough, we receive our presents for being good on that day; otherwise, no presents in our socks. And that I believed in Santa because why do they know that we are good or bad when they are working and that they don't know our behavior on that day? Only to find out that our nanny was the one who reports to them of how are we during that day. Until now when I reminisce that point in my life I can't help but smile and still feel giddy because at that moment in my life I savored and enjoyed my childhood during Christmastime..