Silent Christmas

            All the Christmas songs played on every household changes my mood. Seeing the colorful lights hung in every corner of the streets reminds me of my bitter past. Watching all the assorted Christmas decorations hung on one’s Christmas tree or displayed in their house digs up all my buried sorrows. This doesn’t mean I don’t like Jesus or I’m an atheist. I just hate how my family celebrates Christmas.

            A few years back, I used to stuff my head with Christmas fantasies, picturing a family with a buffet happily eating and laughing together. One week before Christmas I can see the excitement on everyone’s faces. I can hear my cousins talking about how they will light a firecracker at the stroke of twelve and eat their Noche Buena together with their families. All the movies shown in the television were all about Christmas as the most joyous occasion and Santa Claus. As a child, I fell for these illusions.

            As what I remembered about my Christmas, we just had a lot of food but after eating I was told to go off to bed. I did not witness the explosion of the firecrackers. I did not hear my parents greeting us a Merry Christmas. And when I woke up in the morning, there was no sign of Christmas in the house it was just like an ordinary day except for the food and the scattered papers on the streets. But I never stopped hoping that maybe my Christmas would turn out great.

            I kept holding on my fantasies until one Christmas Eve came. My mother was out of town for some work and my father was in a store, drinking liquor with his friends, leaving me and my sister alone. I tried to tell my sister good stories about Christmas just to let her feel that this Christmas would be good. I tried to wait for my mother. I heard the firecrackers and the people’s jubilant greetings and shouting. Until 3 o’clock, there was no sign of my mother. When I woke up, my mother got home but she and my father never spoke a word giving me a clue that they had a fight. There was no celebration in our house, another typical day and I just acted that nothing was wrong in front of my sister. That Christmas turned my hope into despair.

            Few years from that, I did not expect anything about Christmas when the New Year’s Eve came. We were busy preparing for our Media Noche when my ate told us that my favorite grandpa died. New Year’s Day was gloomy and I was left at home since everyone was on my grandpa’s burial, I was very afraid to see him lying in a coffin and thinking that I lost a great person in my life. I was left staring into empty space, I thought it was just Christmas but now I’ll have to suffer another agony in New Year.

            Many people knew that I don’t enjoy Christmas as well as New Year but no one really knew the story behind that. I never talked to my parents about how I feel about this season. I understand that they also never had the chance to experience a good Christmas. I just expected too much. But some part of me still clings to that picture of a perfect Christmas. Last year, my whole family attended the Christmas Eve mass and got the chance to eat our Noche Buena on time. It’s a great improvement compared to the past. Right now, I’m not only hoping but I’m praying for the right time to spend my perfect Christmas and New Year.