It was very cold yesterday at 5-6 Celsius only and the weather outside was unpleasant. Wish it sunny today no matter what.
Halloween is over and all the pumpkins were smashed and thrown away. How are we looking through the days and the future is watching how mother nature unfolds and unravel itself naturally or watch news everyday? I know so boring and lame.
Looking at the calendar on how many days to Christmas... OMG! Only 40 days to Christmas!!!!
I don't know yet if husband will buy a Douglas fir tree for Christmas this year, we usually have one every year after year as in "traditionally" but real trees are getting more expensive. I was thinking of getting a dry twig in the forest with plenty of branches and then just spray white paint on it. Hey being frugal! I remember way back in Philippines we usually buy new broom made from coconut palm leaves and decorate it with cotton and adorn it with Christmas decor. The cotton symbolizes the snow. Sometime twigs or branch from our guava tree, sometimes from the acacia tree. Acacia trees were all over Fort Bonifacio way back the early years during the American Occupation in Fort Mackinley in 1900, before World War II until the 90's. Then when it was developed into BGC Bonifacio Global City it was totally a different place now.
In the Philippines, the most important thing during the Holidays are the whole family get together like a reunion sort of including our neighbors close to our family then have a lavish array of foods on the table like having roast lechon (whole pig roast with crunchy skin skewered in a bamboo pole or just the head with apple on its mouth), viands: menudo, beef caldereta, adobo, pancit of course, pancit palabok, spaghetti, macaroni chicken salad, fried chicken, lumpia, egg rolls. For dessert: ube haleya, fruit salad with macapuno, kaong and young coconut meat,nata de coco. Steamed rice for all the delicious viands. All these foods are the normal feast in my family way back from the 60's to the 90's. I don't know if my parents had changed the traditional menu when I left Philippines.
There is no other place in the world where Christmas is celebrated overtly extensive and lavishly magnanimous than in Philippines. The devout Catholics would wake up very early morning for two weeks in December until Christmas to attend the 4 am mass. The mass is only one hour long depends on how long the communion rite or how many parishioners would take and receive the Holy Wafer (Ostia). It was like mandatory for us during our childhood. I have to stay wide awake inside the Church and listen to the Parish priest sermon. The Church in Guadalupe was always jam-packed SRO, all seats fully occupied and there were parishioners who will stand outside of the Church just to hear Father San Diego's sermon. On the way home, we stopped by where vendors cook "puto bungbong" and bought at least one for any one (for me or my brothers) who likes it for breakfast instead of having "hot pandesal with dairy cream." On Christmas Day, we have to give gifts to our parents with something special it doesn't need to be expensive. Their gifts for us as always? Beautiful clothes. Then we have to visit our Ninong and Ninangs (Godparents). Then more eating and dancing and drinking for elders. For those with talent for singing, karaoke seems to be the favourite venting out for all the brouhaha and drama that happened to them while me, my sister, nieces and friendly neighbors danced to disco song under the glittering and flash of strobe lights and blue light from the ceiling. As I remember the last disco song we danced was Vanilla Ice's ICE, ICE BABY.
Yeah, those were the days.
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