By AGNES PASCO CONATY
Courtesy of Agnes Pasco Conaty
My heart is full of joy as I write my column during this Thanksgiving week. The coming holidays bring back great memories of family celebrations in the Philippines, where they celebrate the longest Christmas season in the world — Filipinos start decorating for Christmas as early as September! My family celebrates many of our Philippine traditions here at home in West Laurel.
As we approach the winter holidays, I would like to share with you an updated version of the story I wrote during the pandemic about our Christmas tree. (The original is in our family’s book, Wicker Baskets.)
Tinsels and Tassels
Our Christmas tree spends most of its time in the garage attic of our home in West Laurel, a cold, dark place with all the dust of cramped space and time. But for the last three weeks of December, the tree takes center stage in our living room, bearing a huge collection of tiny trinkets, sparkling with glitters, and dainty little ornaments that hold stories of their own. I find myself imagining that these delicate baubles speak in hushed voices, telling their adventures to each other in the dark stillness of the night.
This humble tree itself is not spectacular. My husband, Austin, got it for his tree trimming party a few days before leaving for our lovely wedding in the Philippines, in 1999. It was still standing, fully decorated, when we came back the next month, and its spark and color were the warm hearth of my first January in Maryland.
I remember the enormous Victorian decoupaged balls, eight of them, with their matching hexagonal box. Then there were four stoic nutcrackers, collectibles from a few venerable Washington sites.
Every year, family and friends would give us a few more treasures, mostly handmade, featuring endearing photos of smiling nieces and nephews, treasures made out of popsicle sticks and pom poms.
When our son Joseph was born five years after we were married, friends gave us baby-themed ornaments, memorable pieces we held dear with each passing year and every milestone our little boy would reach. Our tree lost a few of its plastic limbs and shed some needles during our move from Greenbelt to Laurel, in 2007, when Joseph was 2 years old.
Soon enough, Joseph would create his own masterpieces: a finger painting from kindergarten, a framed photo of Santa he made in third grade, a wooden nativity scene he colored with his tiny hands. Every year, he would add one or two prized trinkets, putting his creativity to work with his boyish charm and cheer.
In Christmas 2020, the three of us put up our tree with the eagerness of a family cooped up for 10 months during the first leg of what turned out to be a long pandemic. The tree’s towering stature, leaning a bit to one side, all but reached for the stars! With carols playing full blast on the radio, we created a happy mood to bathe our spirits and drown out all the world’s anxieties. Hurry, strum the ukulele that Koyang Reden gave us — strum a joyful Feliz Navidad to drive the gloom away! Quick, hang the lantern from Pampanga (our province in the Philippines), with its multicolored shell star reminding us of cathedral windows twinkling like a drum beat.
My oldest brother, Koyang Nol, lovingly gave us that lantern, which we call a “parol” in Tagalog. It guards the Baby Jesus, a beautifully carved wooden treasure I inherited from my mom, Ima, on our last visit to the Philippines. The beloved memento largely survived suitcase damage and graces not only our Christmases but our daily rosaries, as well.
Outside, in the cold afternoon, five odd wreaths heralded a festive atmosphere, echoing the joyous emotions we felt in our hearts. The gifts, the gifts! With all excitement, I made a mental count of the nieces and nephews, our family Christmas cards, the gift cards and bags with all the amazing presents hidden under motley tissues. And downstairs, by the fireplace, hung three huge stockings embroidered with motifs of toys and our names lovingly embossed by Ima.
On Christmas Eve, we let our tree glitter for hours as we feverishly slaved over the stove, preparing “nilaga,” a Filipino soup with beef, pork, chicken and vegetables, which my maternal grandfather, Lolo Julian, was famous for. We were also cooking our family’s traditional dishes of chicken, beef chorizo, cabbage and potatoes, whose aroma wafted through the magic of the season!
During one of our recent daily calls back to the Philippines, Ima reminisced about Christmases past, when Lolo picked her up from the Philippine Women’s University, where she was a graduate student. She recalled going with him to buy the prized pork leg and ham for his nilaga. En route to the bus station for their trip home, they would stop by a Manila marketplace to buy queso de bola, a type of cheese that is baked inside “pandesal,” a traditional Christmas bread. They’d also buy “tsokolate batirol,” a rich chocolate drink Filipinos traditionally enjoy on Christmas Day. My mother’s familiar stories fill me with fuzzy, warm, nostalgic feelings to this day.
Through the years, our ornament collection keeps growing, several boxes full in all, too many individual treasures to count — and each ornament bears fond memories for all of us. As we unwrap them and recall past Christmases with glee, we learn to appreciate the often overlooked little things, like the quiet grace of the glittery snowflake ornaments on our tree on Christmas morn.
