It's that time of the year again! Christmas songs and Christmas decors accentuate the atmosphere once more! As winds are getting cooler each passing day, I am reminded by myself to make this yuletide season special... Thus, I made it a point to attend mass earlier this day to celebrate the 1st Sunday of the Advent. I also made a confession as I am determined to reunite with the Lord once more. All these are products of a simple analysis I just made about Christmases.
Looking back, the Christmases that were made special were the happiest ones. Most of them took place during my childhood years when the concept of Christmas was still fresh and new. But as I grew up, the meaning of Christmas got lost along the way. Year after year, Christmases soon became nothing but ordinary. There are some outliers though...
As I walked again through my life's memory lane, I realized some common factors about my happy Christmases: doing those old old customs and traditions, spending time with my family and relatives, and forgiveness. Let's see which Christmases did well in my books and which did not... Let's start with the ones I did not enjoy...
1992
I was a little 5-year old then when my parents tried to wake me up to eat Noche Buena. At that same night, I was dreaming of myself riding a car with all those toys at the backseat. When I woke up, it was past midnight and I cared little about the Christmas then. I guess I was too young to realize how special this day actually is.
1993
This year was the first year I got giddy about Christmas. What a difference since last year! I was excited about the Noche Buena but we ended up not doing it because our parents forgot to wake us up at midnight. In the end, December 25, 1993 passed like an ordinary day...
2001
The world then was unstable. The 911 attack reminded us that we can never be safe at all times. That was the general sentiment during those days. And coincidentally, our family was also unstable. For the next 3 years, we've had had some of the worst years of our lives. Thus, this year's Christmas ended up with little to cheer about.
1998, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009
When I was a teen, Christmas meant nothing much to me. I always look forward to Summer seasons for some reasons. I guess, I grew tired of the same concept towards the end of each year. I also did not like the idea of subscribing to old customs and traditions that mean nothing to me. Hence, all these years' Christmases were forgettable...
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On the contrary, here are the happiest Christmases of my life...
1994, 1995, 1996
Christmases are for kids. All those songs, decors and lights are a delight to them. The waiting was often cheerful and the closer it is to December 25, the happier I was. Those were some of the happiest Christmases I've had in my life. I remember having prepared parols as projects for school and having sung Christmas songs with my elementary classmates. Oh, those days were all cheerful...
1997
This year's Christmas made a special mark in my life's history. Although Asian Financial Crisis was prevailing during the 2nd half of that year, it hardly affected the children in our household (at least up to some point). What made this year's Christmas extra special was how we celebrated Noche Buena. For the past 3 years, we simply had it with our family and some maids, and no one else. But this year, our cousins, aunts and uncles went to our house to eat. That was one very happy Christmas.
1999
I was 12 then and the concept of Christmas was getting old but somehow, some things made this year a little more special than the rest. For one, someone gave us a figurine of Mama Mary holding her Baby Jesus that when you turn the key at its bottom side, a cheerful "Silent Night" melody will be played. And it never grows old, no matter how many times you play it. Second, we had so many foods on our Noche Buena and many of them were so delicious that I would never forget that night. Third, there will always be something special about the last Christmas of the millennium especially when the Pope decreed that it will be the start of the Grand Jubilee Year. :) But I guess, on top of all these, I was reminded by the "Silent Night" melody of the solemnity of Christ's birth, which turned that otherwise ordinary Christmas into something magical.
2000
One of the best Christmases of my life. It was somehow a repeat of last year's when it comes to the Noche Buena part (delicious foods on the table!). But what made this year's yuletide season nostalgic was the Christmas Carol competition in our school. Our very dysfunctional class (a.k.a. "I-Emerald") prepared for the competition just like all else but because of our dysfunctional nature, it was almost impossible to pull a "win." We had some of those classmates notorious for making teachers' lives more difficult and the same made it extra hard for our class leaders to contain their attitude. Everything was a mess in all our practices but unexpectedly, we won in our year level. We did not expect that because our class was so unruly that nothing seemed to be working at all. But a "win" is a "win" and in our context then, it meant everything. Sadly, in the subsequent years, no such competition was held. 2000 will be remembered as the only year where I joined a Christmas Carol contest.
2002
I spent this year's yuletide season reading Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. It was so good that I could always relate this year's Christmas with that piece of work. December 25, 2002 was simple but very solemn. For some reasons, that was one Happy Christmas...
2007
I would never forget what this year's Christmas taught me: forgiveness means happiness. In the latter part of this year, my relationship with some of my friends went awful. The treasured relationship I had with them was on a crisis. Knowing all these, my mom gave me a lecture on life and ended it by saying, "Greet them a Merry Christmas and forgive them..." I obeyed her. This made my Christmas very special. There's no better time to forgive others than Christmas. It has set me free from cold-hearted anger...
2010
Last year's Christmas was memorable because our family and our mother-side relatives went to an amusement park to play. Usually, we spend our Christmases in one of our homes but this time, we went farther than that and extended the celebration. :)
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It seems that the more I observe some old old Christmas customs and traditions, the merrier are my Christmases. Similarly, the act of doing a noble deed on the Christmas day itself makes the day very special, as is the case of 2007. In addition, it is wise to make each Christmas special by doing something unique, or something that has not been done in the past years.
By doing this simple analysis, I learned that Christmas is all about doing noble acts, subscribing to old Christmas traditions, celebrating with the family, and of course, remembering Jesus...
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