CHRISTMAS DAY AS A KID

There is a magic in the air that makes it impossible for most people to sleep on the eve of Christmas and the New Year. The magic makes you feel like you are missing out on something great by not being awake when the clock chimes 12 am. You can breathe again, you smile and hug merry Christmas with those around you because this is what the prelude has led to; Christmas day.

Christmas day was amazing for me as a child; it was the most magical day of the year. The one day when I got to wear a new dress, new shoes, new plastic glasses and visit an eatery or the amusement park. For someone who grew up just above being poor, Christmas was never taken for granted. My mum would buy our clothes at least a week before Christmas day and stash it somewhere secret where we wouldn’t be able to see until the morning of December 25^th as we dressed up for mass. Oh the pride I felt walking on the street to church; looking down on all the other children like I was better than them with an extra gait in my steps, my canvass lit up with flashing colors, my flowing dress shining and surrounding me with the scent of its newness and my cheap plastic four faced glasses sitting atop my face and giving me the confidence of Margaret Thatcher.

It was the only day I wished that mass would not end quickly but somehow that seemed to be the day that the priest celebrated mass in less than two hours. We would go home after church, walking slowly like we didn’t want the moment when we would have to take off our clothes to come.

At home my mum would have finished cooking the most delicious fried rice, chicken and salad that I have ever tasted in my life. It was like she put extra love in her cooking on Christmas day because the food was always divine. After cooking she would give some food to our non-Christian neighbours and I would sit there angry at her for giving out our Christmas food to people who didn’t even know the meaning of the word. It wasn’t till I grew up that I understood that she was sharing the spirit of Christmas with people who didn’t have any the only way she knew how to… by giving the one that made Christmas day feel different… Love, magic and food.

I would eat so much food my tummy burst at the seams and my dad would let us have non-alcoholic wine and a bottle of coke each! We would sit in the living room and watch movies together as a family while purging our bums out in the toilet as we made space to eat more food. It was one day where our parents didn’t scold us, nothing we did was wrong. We were as one family, united in love without squabbles for one day.

On Boxing Day we would visit a place we had all agreed upon. Most times it was the amusement park, the beach or a new fast food restaurant. Fast food and outings were visits we only got once in a year so we made sure to enjoy, savour and memorize it because it would be another one year before we had such fun again. Life wasn’t easy, we didn’t get any gifts, but my parents tried as much as possible to make it as special for us as  they could….i will be always be grateful to them for all the awesome Christmas memories I have.

Merry Christmas fellas and remember to share the Christmas spirit with someone who has none. After all isn’t that what Jesus would do to commemorate his birth?