Since moving to Nashville — our third Christmas here — we’ve been spending Christmas Eve with Filipinos. (The Philippines typically starts celebrating Christmas on the Eve, and keeps going until the following day. Actually, Christmas starts on December 16 with the Catholics going to early morning mass at five o’clock every day until Christmas. The final Christmas mass is celebrated Christmas Eve and ends with families going home to dinner feasts. I haven’t been a Catholic since 1991. I do have many fond Catholic Christmas memories as a teenager though.)
I digress.
This Christmas on Christmas Eve celebrating is deeply rooted in Philippine culture and follows most Filipinos wherever in the world they go. I personally don’t necessarily feel the need to do this but I will never say no to food and hanging out with people, so since moving back to the US in 2007, Kyera and I have spent Christmas the Filipino way.
In 2007, we were in Orlando with our pastors from Victory and their families, the Magpantays and the Duques, at the Magpantay’s home. The following year we did the same thing but at the Duque’s.
In 2009, our first Christmas in Nashville, the Daswani’s had us over. I’ve known them since 1993 when I first started attending Victory.
Since 2010, we’ve been hosted by the Tabelismas. One of the most generous families I know. Their home is party central for many of our Filipino gatherings. And yes, they have Karaoke!
We do pot luck and sign up to bring a dish, or in our case, we have dibs on a dessert or drinks. The food is a mixture of Filipino and American favorites.
As soon as all the families have arrived, we give thanks for each other and for the food.
And we smile a lot because we’re so excited to eat and hang out!
This year, our hosts took the festivities up a notch and put together a program. After dinner, Malou handed out strips of paper we were forbidden from opening. We then gathered in the living room, watched the Story of How Candy Canes Got Their Stripes, and then one by one, we unfolded our strips of paper and read our questions out loud.
Mine said: “What is your favorite Christmas food?” “Deviled eggs!”
After everyone read their questions and shared their answers, we then played a nameless game I’ll call “Roll and Grab.” Each person was given the chance to roll a pair of dice and if they rolled a seven or a double, they had to put on a pair of gloves and try to unwrap one of a number of gifts. The dice, though, rapidly made its way around the room, so with each seven and double rolled, the next person jumped up and tore the gloves off of the person unwrapping, grabbed the gift from their hands, and continued unwrapping the mystery gift.
There was no such thing as old or young. The glove grabbing and gift unwrapping was borderline aggressive. Hilarious! And then we played “Dirty Santa” minus the mean gifts that we hand out at our office Christmas party…
At the end of the game, gift bartering took place so everyone who played got to go home with something they actually liked. No plungers with Lysol at this Dirty Santa game!
No Filipino party is complete without lots of picture taking.
And lots of dancing or singing or both. This year, we let the Karaoke rest and just danced.
Kyera and I finally headed home at two in the morning — with two trays of leftovers — to open our secret gifts to each other. Since we already gave each other our big gifts, I decided to set a ten dollar budget for us to give each other a secret gift which we ended up buying together but separately and sneakily at Target.
“I’m checking out! Don’t go near line eight!”
Opening one gift on Christmas Eve is a tradition I’ve had since I was a kid and the one thing I’ve handed down to Kyera.
She cheated and got me something worth more than $10: a jar of night creme I’ve been eyeing! I got her a pair of fuzzy, hot pink slippers she wasn’t able to guess.
It was a really good Christmas. One that will definitely be remembered as the one with the gift grabbing and the dancing around midnight.
And love. Lots of love.
