Christmas Morning 2011

And so this is Christmas, as the song goes. I am here watching my favorite show - Sunday Morning while reading the Sunday paper and trying to find my thoughts so I could write them down. If I could only stop listening to Albert Brooks and quit looking at the Comics, maybe I'll get somewhere.

So here we go. Yesterday was not the mad dash it was last year for me. I had my errands done early that I was still able to finish watching "Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen", return it to the library, pick up stuff and deliver yet other stuff.

The most heartening thing for me is seeing presents dropped at our door and neighbors coming in bringing little presents of food or trinkets and greeting us "Merry Christmas." I love this community because we are a community. It's not just for the presents but for what they signify - the friendship, the bond, the warmth. But then again, that bond comes from the fact that we pray together, we share our faith, our trials and tribulations, our hurts and our happy times.

I spoke with my siblings in the Philippines and Canada and with two nephews who are also both my godsons - therefore the nostalgic melancholy of the season had subsided. I will see most of them when I come home next month.

We are going to Palm Springs for 4 days to relax and unwind. Ate Lodi and her family with Ate Ellie of course, are also on their way somewhere more exotic - Jakarta and Bali in Indonesia. It's a tradition they have started years ago - to take a break between Christmas and New Year as a family.

Things are changing - and life as I know it in the past decade will be very different in ways I am not sure of. But as my dear friend Lizanne wrote to me, " I’ve found in my life that travelling at such times — when your body, mind and soul may feel tender, but so open to new experiences — is magical."

I am so looking forward for the magic - and am also ready for the unexpected.

Merry Christmas.