TOPAZ HORIZON

When Christmas is all about family, how do you deal when the one you most love is not there? Well, I'll get there but let me first tell you how I was feeling this Christmas. I wasn't feeling Christmasy, that's what. I was sick. What is this nasty cough-and-colds bug going around??? Everyone except my never-sick Iñigo got it. I also had work plus the never-ending projects and requirements from my kids' school. So I just wasn't feeling it.

But sometime in the middle of December, it finally kicked in—my excitement for the season. I was still sick, the school was (and is actually still) sending homework, and my clients did not pay me at all (so no money huhu) but I didn't care. Christmas was here! Joy to the world! 'Tis the season to be jolly!

This should be my 2nd Christmas =)

I was telling Vince that mothers is what makes Christmas possible. Yep. Who makes the lists, shops for the gifts, wraps them beautifully, plans all the activities, decorates the house, puts up the tree, wakes everyone up for church (if you go), cooks and cooks and cooks, hosts the parties, collects all the money and gifts in her bag, and then posts the photos on Facebook? Mommies. Always mommies! Okay, Vince was the one who posted the photos on Facebook but only because I reminded him to do it haha.

So you see, if mothers decided to boycott Christmas, Christmas as we know it won't happen. And so you see, if you're like me and you don't have a mother anymore, Christmas can be a shock to the system, a yearly reminder that the woman who made this season so magical is no longer there.

Mama's garden was still in the making. She got busy making babies first!

Christmas has always been Mama's season. She loved it! She put up the tree early. She wrapped all the gifts. We had fabulous holiday decor of felt and glitter and tinsel all over the house. We had different colored lights permanently installed on the soffits of our roof. We always went to ALL the parties and family reunions. And she loved the fruit cake, the fruit salad, that dessert that was a cake topped by gelatin with fruits suspended in it—she loved it all.

It was so funny when we became Born Again and somewhere along the way, we learned that Christmas is a pagan holiday because Jesus ought to have been born around the harvest and that falls around the end of September, but December 25 was decreed the date of Jesus's birth because people were already celebrating the birth of a pagan god and it was just easier for early evangelists to transition to that date. Etc etc. So basically, our then-pastor said, when we celebrate Christmas in December, we were actually worshipping a pagan god.

This was not okay with my mother. I think it was a crisis of faith haha. I remember her upset at the dining table talking about this with my father and Papa was, like, "To hell with facts!" (My papa was never a believer in facts haha). So finally she decided it's the thought that counts because we continued to celebrate Christmas anyway. And that was that.

Christmases at my aunt's QC home was a mandatory thing in those days.

We didn't have a tree anymore—for years!—but Mama still kept the vital Christmas traditions alive, which was church, family reunions, and gifts. She always gave gifts. Even when we didn't have money! I remember one Christmas her gift to me was she and my sister arranged all my photos (that had been in a box) in a cheap photo album. And I looked through that album and I was crying because it was such a wonderful gift. It was the gift of time that she gave me. She gave me her time arranging all those photos chronologically and she gave me a time machine because photos are always a trip down memory lane.

And that's all I have of her this Christmas and every Christmas. Photos and memories. Typical mother, she was almost always never in photos so I have very few photos of Mama at Christmas. The ones you see here, that's all I could find. I'm sure there are more. I remember vividly one photo of Mama in an Afro and electric blue eye shadow. Must have been a groovy Christmas!

Our last Christmas together and we didn't know it. The tree was Vince's gift because he thought my family should have one.

When Mama suddenly died in September 2008, we were seriously dreading Christmas. Like, WHAT NOW?! I didn't even want to go home and see that she wasn't there. But my sister Jacqui saved us all. She put up the tree because that's what Mama would've wanted. She said she was making fruit salad and asked what's our contribution.

And so we showed up, all of us except my older brother because it must've been still too painful for him. The tree from Vince was all lit up with Mama's pink decorations (so now you know why my tree is pink) and we ate and laughed and gave gifts and it was okay.

It was okay. We were going to be all right.

Our first Christmas without Mama.

And I know for people like me, people who no longer have mommies on Christmas, this season can be very difficult. We keep seeing who's no longer there. But for me, it's kinda nice. It's like a time machine. It's at Christmas I remember my Mama most. I remember Mama's excitement and singing and how she loved to eat and be with family. She was so happy at Christmas, wrapping gifts. She taught me how to wrap gifts and to make my scissors glide on that wrapping paper like a dream.  Most of the year, I'm too busy and brush aside memories of Mama. On Christmas, she comes back FULL FORCE.

I've learned to open up myself to these memories, to embrace the season, and to step into that time machine. Because New Year is coming up fast and then I will be swept away again by the urgency of small kids and work and marriage but on Christmas, amidst the whirl of it all, Mama comes back and I welcome her home.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, dear fellow orphan. We are so lucky to have been so loved. What a gift!