When I feel the cool December breeze, I know Christmas is just around the corner.  I like the Christmas season.  “It’s my favorite time of the year,” not only because it is time for festivities, gifts, new clothes, new toys and parties and vacation (and for the adults, time for the much-anticipated bonuses and thirteenth month pay), but because everything is mellow: the weather is mellow, not so hot, not so cold – just right.  The sky is clear, but the sun is not fierce.  The December flowers are burgeoning and the air is cool.  The heads of people are also a little bit colder, if not floating in the clouds. There is also little dust.

I spent my Christmases as a kid in Bicol, particularly at the town of Nabua.  I remember the time when my young neighbors and I used to wake one another at around two at dawn for the Simbang Gabi(actually dawn mass).  We neither used any alarm clock nor had cell phones at that time.  Know what woke us up then?  It was the second crowing of the cock!  The wonder was it never fails.  The cock crows at exactly the same time at night.  I can hear them clearly as I barely slept.  When I was young, sleep was one of the most unnecessary things on Earth.  My mom used a stick to lull me to sleep in the afternoons.  She was a firm mother.  But, I was equally a mischievous and very active child.  I used every reason possible to get out of the bed in the afternoons.  “Mama, I need to pee,” or “Mama, I need to poopoo.”  I really had to pee or to poopoo because she really waited for me at the door of the toilet.  Then, seeing that anything she does had no effect on me, she gives up and just let me play.  When I was already awakened, believe me, I used to bathe in deep well water at two in the morning!  What vanity can do.  Then at around three, off we go walking to church – for five kilometers.   Sure we walk through a very well-paved road (It was the national highway in Bicol), but we just got used to walking to church for five kilometers at dawn.  The reasons, I figured out later while I was growing up, was not that we people liked to brave the very cold dawn air and sacrifice those deep precious sleep, but it was good to walk.  There were transports like the Palces (regular buses), occasional jeepneys and tricycles, but it just did not feel right if you used the transportation in going to church.  It doesn’t feel right not to see some “friends” along the road.  The road to the downtown was like a main river and from its sides dirt roads going to each baranggay were the tributaries.  From each tributary, we always knew someone or some familiar faces.  Once or twice, I hear voices ahead of us which I recognize to be of a classmate or a friend.  Then all of us were the water going to the downtown which is the great lake of people. 

We had so much to see and experience along the road.  We always had the thrills and shivers whenever we pass by parts of the road completely shadowed by big trees.  I wondered why we never saw the beheaded priest, or some centaur believed to chase the churchgoers.  We always see bats of gigantic proportions and giving off sinister squeaks.  While walking, we looked up often towards the sky.  We studied the constellations and shouted with glee whenever a shooting star fell.  That was the time I discovered that there were so many falling stars from the sky.  If all my wishes came true, I would have been the happiest man in the world.  I also gazed fixedly upon the different lanterns and Christmas lights in the different households.  For me, the best part of Christmas is the Christmas lights.  Christmas is not complete without it.  In our house Christmas officially begins on the first glow of Christmas lights on our Christmas tree.  We never bought a Christmas tree.  Part of the season’s joys were gathering shrubs, or tree parts, cleaning and grooming them with our own styles and skills learned from Home Economics class.  Then at dawn along the street, the peaceful sleeping houses were softly illumined by the blinking Christmas lights; red, yellow, orange, green, white, blue.  For me it’s magic!
 

When we pass by the cemetery, we joked that we were passing our future houses; our future apartments, or condos or house and lots.  After the cemetery, there was a final stretch of lightless road between big rice fields.  After that, it is the poblacion.  The houses are already huddled together and the rice fields disappear.  Then the downtown suddenly appears from the final bend.  Our town is sparkling with lights during the Christmas season.  

We have a very big church.  It is a 500 year old (almost… it was built in 1578) church made of red bricks and erected during the Spanish regime.  It looks like a museum inside.  When I was young, my Mama always brought us to mass—first mass, which is at 5 am.  I never remembered anything but the songs in the cantada mass, which lasts forever.  While the mass was going on, my eyes were busy surveying everything inside the church.  That was how the image of the Thirteen Station of the Cross was imprinted on my mind.  In all churches, there are images of the Station of the Cross, but in the Church of Nabua, the images were carved ala-bas-relief on uniform blocks of wood.  The carvings seem so ancient, but the people are well-proportioned and the craftsmanship is flawless.  I nearly had stiff neck looking up at them from end to end, from left to right of the church. Another thing that fascinated me inside the church was the capiz chandeliers.  I liked the sights and sound of shells made into thin circles.  They are like silver coins shining and clinking against each other.  They never fail to lull me inside the church.  Now, those antiques were replaced by “I cannot remember things.”  
 

I also was fascinated by the stained colored glass windows.  As I remember, the colors were green, orange, red and yellow.  In the mornings, the glass windows cast a very dramatic light inside the church.  Now, they are replaced by modern stained glasses which depict the cultural heritage of the town of Nabua.  But for some reasons, I really miss those simple colored window glasses.  I miss the colored beams dancing on the red shiny floor of our church before.
 

The most noticeable and the most fascinating of all the great things inside the church is the altar.   I often wondered what was at the back of it.  I thought God was hiding there.  The altar extends all the way to the top of the church.  As I learned from my classmates just a week ago, the folks call it retablo.  The retablo has several big compartments about the size of elevators.  At the center, there is the biggest compartment housing the very big Holy Cross from which the name Holy Cross Parish Church came.  Below it is a chamber for the hostia(host) and the ciborium used for the mass.  The ciborium, a 300 year old solid gold cup was “stolen” when I was in college.  For several Sundays the church never had any mass as a protest and mourning against the “robbery”.  On both the left and right sides of the retablo, are three chambers housing life size images of saints, as if to guard the altar.  Yes, that big.  On the very top of the retablo is the second biggest chamber where you could find one of the most ancient and beautiful sculptures of the Pieta.  It is called the Nuestra Senora de Angustia.  This big sculpture is a most mysterious and legendary religious relic.  Folklore (and history) tells that the image was found by two agtas(aetas or natives)  in the rivers in the slopes of Mt. Sumagang (In Iriga, then a sitio of the town of Nabua) during the Spanish period.  The agtas, according to legend could not pull the image from the mud.  Then they called the folks down the mountain, but the people could not stir the image from the mud as well.  Then two old women from the town proper of Nabua dreamed of a lady pleading them to fetch her and bring her to the church of Nabua.  Troubled by it, the two women complied and went to the direction of the image submerged in mud, and without any difficulty managed to lift the image from the mud and carried it to the church of Nabua, where it found its home until the present.  To honor the two agtas, the folks in Iriga made their statues, a chapel at the vicinity where the Virgin was found, and a replica of the image.  Now, the place is a favorite pilgrimage, picnic, and tourist spot in Mt. Iriga in Iriga City.
 

The altar is a most elaborate and intricately decorated altar.  It is very strong and very well-balanced.  The design echoes the facades of churches built by the Spanish in Latin America.  When I was young, it was just white, but every now and then, it is painted with other colors like silver and gold.  However, my most favorite is white.  I think it is best in its white color.  

Every last dawn mass, the archbishop of the Bicol region himself is the mass celebrant in our church.  Maybe because of the religiosity of the people, the beauty of the church, or the kilometer-long line of people carrying all sorts of offerings from big boxes to small envelops during the offertory.

After the mass, the people pour in all directions going out the church.  I remember the time people could go out from five exits.  Three exits along the side of the main road.  At another side of the church, there were two exits.  One was getting past the convent exiting toward San Esteban and San Antonio Poblacion.  Another at the end exits toward San Roque and the road going to Balatan.  There was no problem however numerous the churchgoers were.  The Nabua church used to have a very big and wide façade.  The landscape and garden complimented the church’s architecture.  So simple, yet so elegant.  Simply beautiful.  We also had a very spacious activity center called 1578 Center, which had an architecture complimenting the church.  Now, all I see is a church crowded with so many edifices, around, which I am not sure whether functioning well or just ruining the old beautiful and functional architectural plan of our beloved church.

In the mornings after the mass, we inched our way out from the main gate, and joined the long queues in front of Penales to buy hot pan de sal to bring home or eat along the way.  It was nearly daybreak and the air was usually foggy.  The cool morning mist was in the air.  The leaves and flowers seemed to shiver in cool dewdrops.  We traced our way back to La Opinion.  The Christmas lights in the houses were still on, some stars were still glowing, and we had a brand new excited feeling.  The walk back home was easy and leisurely.  As we get near our place, the people along the road were also thinning.  When we finally reach home, we still wanted to walk!  We used to get past our houses and walk straight to another town.  We walk all through the way to Bato, which was nearer my house than our downtown proper by kilometers.  The road going to Bato from my house was very clear at both sides.  I can see all the big mountains of Bicol from there.  “From Isarog to Bicol land to lofty Mayon peak…” he he that’s the first line of the Ateneo de Naga marching song.  But truly, from that road, all big mountains along that chain were visible.  And it so happened that all those mountains are volcanoes.   When we finally got back home, that was the time we race or go jogging.  That was how we do our dawn masses for nine days.
 

Christmas season is not complete without Christmas parties in school.  I remember the teacher setting the minimum price for each gift.  We draw lots.  You were lucky if the one who picked your name was well-off.  Of course we seldom knew who picked our names.  I remember a classmate in elementary who gave me some coins because according to her, the amount of her gift to me did not reach the minimum.  I also remember receiving a water color from a classmate.  It seemed that knowing I was an artist, it was easy for my classmates to think of a gift for me.  I really do not remember the gifts I bought for my monitos and monitas.  Generally, the mood was very exciting.  During gift-giving(the most exciting part), we form a circle and the gift-giver goes around.  The teacher chooses the one who would start giving a gift.  Then the one to receive the gift will be the one to give his or her gift next, and so on and so forth.  We were about more than thirty or forty in class, so it meant that we had to sing thirty or forty times the song Monito-Monita, which goes “I love my Monito, yes I do…”  Those were the days…
 

We also had Christmas programs or presentation in schools.  We did all sorts of plays, poetry recitation, and dance.  One of the things I remember was the play about the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, and the First Noel or the First Christmas.  In Nabua, there was this Christmas dance for girls, which is called “Pastora.”  Maybe related to the word “Pastor” or “shepherd”.  To tease the girls we chant “Pastora a Belen, panok sa balinbin …”  It means girl shepherd in Bethlehem, greedy of star fruit. It is just a nonsensical rhyme.  My sister used to be included in that troupe every year.  My mother used to buy a farmer’s hat and then decorate it with crepe paper with the same color as the dancers’ dresses.  The dancers used every move involving the use of the hat.  They were so graceful actually.  Some Pastora troupes were accompanied by musicians and they go around town to dance in front of establishments and households, very much like the carolers.
 

We also went caroling around the neighborhood.  We really made musical instruments out of bottle caps as tambourines, and gallons and tin cans for drums.  Unlike in Manila, we children in Nabua only go caroling in front of a house once.  Also before, we can sing Christmas carols anytime of night anywhere in the neighborhood.  Now, you need to ask permits from the town or baranggay office to go caroling.  Then we gather the amount we collected and spend them on our own children’s neighborhood Christmas party.  It was innocent fun. 

 
Christmas Eve was always a big event.  We were always busy cooking all sorts of food.  I argue with my Mom about what kind of noodles to cook.  I didn’t like pansit Bato or pansit Bicol because I thought it was very cheap for Christmas.  Sometimes, I myself caught chickens for Christmas dinner.  I remembered we had Cantonese Chickens which were very tamed. I just grabbed them from the mango trees.  We had lots of bread, and cookies and many other kinds of food, native and foreign.  I also didn’t like the native food for Christmas before.  I thought they were baduy and inappropriate for Christmas.  What mind.  Now that I was transplanted back to Manila from Bicol in order to survive, I’m dying for those kinds of food.  I am sometimes fed up with hamburgers, spaghetti, pizza and other fast food.  I feel heaven when somebody from Bicol gives me that ever-favorite pansit Bato, and when my folks send me tabrilla and other goodies from Nabua. 

 
In the evening, we usually go from house to house sharing the food we prepared.  We also received some food from neighbors sometimes.  Then we go to church for the Misa de Gallo or the Midnight Mass.  Christmas Eve mass was always meaningful.  I loved the part the priest and his entourage carries Baby Jesus along the aisles of the church.  Our church in Nabua was always overflowing with people.  Families go together, we meet friends and relatives, and we greet each other with solemn and calm air. Very sincere.  Somebody told me, there are more churches than clubs in Bicol, and there are more clubs than churches in Manila. What an observation.  The Christmas mass at Nabua church was always very solemn.  Maybe because the people are very religious. It is very big yet the voice of the priest is loud and clear.  Christmas in Nabua gives someone a quiet, fulfilled and loving feeling.  I miss that feeling.  Now, I only have memories to make me smile.  But someday soon, “I’ll be home for Christmas.”