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CONSIDER the sounds of early December mornings in the old hometown, the murmur of folks on their way to church--Malamminak sika! Wen, nakasipsipnget pay!--their footfalls in the dark that follow the soft chiming of bells in the distance--sounds that ring through the years, echoing in your mind, inviting you to holidays you saw and heard as a child, to colorful
parols and and promenades around town. A season you tasted and savored, too. For how can you forget the scrumptious tupig you
made with friends over a warming fire by the coconut tree at the
back of the house?

Then, imagine the sound of carolers at the front gate,
straight from church, shivering from the cold on Rizal Street...

Nostalgic memories and carols aside, the holidays hurt for a lot uf us. I don't mean to sound like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but the heart still smarts from the myriad memories of Decembers past. There's a bittersweet taste to it, inspite of the tinkling refrain of silver bells, the innocent music box quality of it all. Oddly enough, in the merriest--and coldest night of the year--it becomes a flame cupped in one's hand. It warms.

In truth, beyond the merrymaking and feasts and festive lights, beyond the thrill of being with family and friends unwrapping gifts under the tree, a sadness dwells somewhere. Maybe I miss my childhood friends with whom I went caroling around; maybe I miss my grandmother who took me along to hear the midnight mass, a Christmas memory I still cherish after all these years. Maybe it's all that, and the cold light that tells me to snap out of it before I begin to sound like Scrooge, or worse.

I can still see the table laden with native dishes, delicacies, candies; and
across the room the modest accoutrements of a way of life blessed with
simplicity and goodness. It wasn't much, but we were happy. On Christmas Eve my father sang along with my sisters gathered in the living room. They sang White Christmas, which made me look at the Christmas tree--a
pitiful replica, really, festooned with crepe paper, cotton balls and such.
We didn't have toys or reindeers either, nor Jack Frost nipping at your
nose as the song goes. It didn't matter much, however. I thought of
my uncle and how he was doing in America. I thought of how
lucky he was to have a real white Christmas--unlike ours
with its fake snow--but wondered if he was anywhere
close to being happy as we were.

Years later, when I emigrated to America, I found him in one of
the farmlands of California, an old man living--in the words of
Charles Dickens--"the silent gliding on of existence," virtually alone in a far and foreign country.

During the holidays I think of Vintar--and my uncle. I wonder what Christmas meant to him, what memories he kept in his heart before he died. I guess this explains why sometimes the season gives me pause, even as the voices ring once more, clear and cold as the stars that shone down our street in Vintar in that long-ago December.