Girl with Issues

It's Christmas Eve, and I'm here in Karlo's house blogging.

While everyone else is busy preparing Noche Buena and too giddy and excited to bond with relatives and friends, I am bitter about the holidays. Yes, I am bitter about Christmas.

We don't celebrate Christmas and New Year at all. We hear mass during Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve and that's it. I grew up without Noche Buena on our dining table every Christmas Eve. I grew up with no gifts to open on Christmas Day. I grew up with no merriment during the most festive season in the year. I got used to welcoming the New Year with no fireworks, no Medya Noche. I got used to just sleeping through these all.

I've never been too emotional about this, until I met Karlo and his very wonderful family, the ideal family I've always dreamed of having - a family with no one having to sacrifice working abroad just to give the family a decent living, a family who highly values family ties and tradition, a family who embraced me and treated me as their own.

Just this afternoon, I had the guts to answer back Mom with her nonchalant justifications of not preparing for the holidays. It was too much for me to bear already. She said it was not practical to waste money for a short-time celebration, given our family's financial condition that we are deeply in debt. If only I could just explain to her that even the poorest of those in shanties and slum areas still manage to prepare something for the holidays, that alone will not serve Mom's reasons as valid.

Readers of this blog entry might find my rantings very superficial, but I just want to be completely honest with what I feel. Yesterday, I went shopping for gifts with Karlo in Marikina yesterday and it was my first time to buy gifts for my family, the household members, and my inaanak. We bought a lot, spent a considerable amount of money for gifts, but it was all worth it.

I'm too shy to admit but I don't know how to wrap gifts at all. I even had to ask help from Karlo to wrap those gifts. That and all other hurts summed up PLUS Daddy's physical absence, I AM BITTER ABOUT CHRISTMAS.

I still have lots of issues about my family but it's too much to pour them all in one blog entry. So next year, whether Mom likes it or not, I am going to decorate our house with Christmas decors and colorful lights, I will buy a huge Christmas tree inside our house, I will buy fireworks, I will prepare Noche Buena (thus the pressure to learn how to cook! Haha!), I will buy gifts for everyone. Even if I have to spend P15,000.00 or more for all these, it's okay. As long as I don't have to feel this bitterness anymore during the holidays, then it's okay.

Merry Christmas everyone :)