I. Pre-Christmas: Mild Expectations

Christmas always begins earlier than the soul is ready. You approach the tree with the energy of someone who wants fun without effort, hanging ribbons and balls more for the thrill of it than any sense of ceremony, while avoiding the dust and the chores you’d rather not do. You tell yourself you enjoy the process, of course you’re expected to, but the only honest excitement arrives when the star is placed on top, a small assertion of control in a world where fourteen dogs enthusiastically rearrange everything according to their own spectacularly misguided vision of decor.

You silence your opinions in politics, religion, lifestyle choices, and that one incendiary thought about family fights that always seem to erupt in public (usually in Chinese restaurants), not because you lack conviction, but because December is too short to recover from a family war.

We continue the myth-making. Stockings are still hung for us kids in our 20’s who cling to the possibility of Santa Clause arriving in the dead of night, still hoping we weren’t naughty enough to earn coal instead of gifts. Tradition is a strange thing: a story we keep telling, its meaning stubbornly intact even as it bends, stretches, and collides with the inevitable march of growing up. 

II. Christmas Eve: A Song of Ice and Fireworks

Christmas Eve is the true crucible. The day is a slow simmer of affectations until nightfall, when the entire household slips into its annual theater of togetherness.

The dreaded card arrives from the aunt universally disliked, its cursive looping with the grace of someone who has perfected the art of passive aggression. You read the message, if only to decode the hidden accusation of your father’s perfunctory hand-washing of his brother’s relations. The little ones ask how Santa enters their houses without chimneys and you improvise mythology involving air vents, ancestral spirits, or the good old “magic” before they sense doubt.

Then comes the oldest moral dilemma in the Filipino household: hide your tattoos from your lola or reveal them and trust that Jesus, who forgave far worse things, might lend you a hand. Throw yourself at His mercy when they ask you for the how manyeth time, “Unsa gani imong kurso?” (“What’s your course again?”) and you dumbify the humanities by muttering something about basa-basa, suwat-suwat.

Small talk with distant cousins requires a performance of familiarity: excessively nodding at stories you don’t remember, asking questions you don’t care about, pretending you knew their name and casually asking about the spelling or nickname, hoping no one notices you’ve forgotten their real one.

Holiday games break out with the same intensity as political elections. Someone cheats. Someone cries. Someone accuses someone else of cheating or favoritism. And the bystanders look the other way: silently, strategically, and with all traces of accountability conveniently erased.

You unwrap a gift with an Oscars “Wow!”, making a mental note to wear it around them next time. Dinner is excellenty cooked through shouting, slammed pots, and at least one argument sharp enough to slice the air. Every insult somehow adds flavor, and the meal reaches its peak when everyone is already desperately racing to the line before the lechon becomes skinless.

You miss the fireworks because you’re too busy greeting people online, offering digital affection to people who wouldn’t recognize you in daylight. And the pictures, oh, the pictures. Your smile is genuine for the first three frames, then your repertoire of whacky poses runs out, until by the sixteenth photo you’re red, exhausted, and ready to smite the next person who says, "One more!" 

III. Post-Christmas: The Glitter, or There and Back Again

After the noise, the house exhales. You begin the guilt cycle of the unsent thank-you messages and the promises to “keep in touch” that evaporate by December 26. You assess the damage: emotional, caloric, spiritual. You calculate how many moments of weakness it took to undo your progress this year, and the number always lands somewhere between 10kg and “all of it.”

You dramatically contemplate over whether it’s too soon to start mentally preparing for next year’s madness. You curse the stubborn glitter on your face yet refuse to completely wash it off. You realize Christmas means something even when you dread parts of it, that miracles like a lone star literally aligning for 3 wise men to follow — or just getting through the holidays — still feel possible if only for one night.

And you will let out a sigh of what you think is relief, but the tiny part inside you that refuses to grow up, yearns for a Christmas that lasts forever.