It was early morning when Lilia woke up first, or so she thought. When arriving downstairs of her family’s ancestral home, she saw Anne sitting in the living room fiddling a game on her phone, while still in her nightwear. She was surprised, it was only yesterday that she helped her brother who was busy with work to pick her niece from the airport in his stead. Instead of resting she woke up to find her even earlier than she should have.
She clicked her tongue at the thought of the youth putting more of their attention into gadgets nowadays, before promptly putting on her earphones and playing a pop music to start cooking a light breakfast for the two of them. Even after she finished making things in the kitchen, Anne still hasn’t realized that her aunt was awake and stood next to her with a plate of sandwiches and two mugs of hot cocoa.
“Morning Ann Marie.” Lilia said loudly, startling the young teen.
“Aaah! Tita!” Anne exclaimed, almost dropping her phone. Lilia chuckled at her and offered up the snacks and cocoa, receiving a thanks and then settled on the sofa opposite to her.
“You seem way to attached to your phone, it was only yesterday you came here from a long flight and you’re not resting enough. It’s still so early that you can see the stars outside.”
“I was only checking on my social media, my friends went off to spend the holidays in a resort while I’m stuck here.” Anne replied with a hint of frustration.
Lilia raised an eyebrow. “You upset about spending Christmas here?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “It’s just, why did I have to come back now, I mean, it doesn’t seem any different if I came on the twenty-third instead.”
“We have Simbang Gabi before Christmas eve Anne, this is the few times our family could get the extended part to celebrate with us. Aren’t you glad to see your other cousins and relatives.”
“We do this every year, and I wanted to spend this Christmas in the U.S”
“Going to school abroad is not a means to pass up spending time doing tradition with the family.”
Anne sighed in frustration, she as much as she loved her family, she wanted to venture spending some time in a foreign land, though she’d probably change her mind at the last minute to come here anyway. Despite the initial hardships in adapting to the new environment she did well in her lessons and making new friends, she was really thankful that her family helped her in getting the opportunity to attend college abroad, so even though she had a different plan she ended up complying to coming back to the Philippines.
“I definitely want to spend time with family, but I’m just not so much into the other parts of Christmas tradition,” Anne mumbled. “I’m not exactly as religious as lolo and lola, and waking up to attend a mass at three to five in the morning is not my thing.”
“It’s a quarter to four right now and were awake talking.” Lilia pointed out the very early time.
“Well I had a bit of insomnia.” Anne said looking down.
“Mm-hmm,” Lilia sipped her cocoa before replying. “Well you have to go to pray thank you for every good thing you got this year, and don’t make spending time with family any less than being far away in abroad for Christmas, you have to believe in the importance of the tradition. Do these reasons help convince you to be more accepting.”
“I’m not rejecting any, I just don’t believe as strong as I’d use to in religion.”
“Well that’s fine, I’m an atheist and yet I still go along with it.” Lilia told her.
Anne looked up fast to stare at her aunt in shock.
“What?! But, didn’t you just,” Anne stammered. “You kept talking about how important it is to follow the tradition, I mean, if your like that, then why do you even come to church?”
Lilia took a sip. “Oh Anne, I already told you why.”
“What?” Anne asked confused.
“I may not believe in religion, yes I know I’m being fake, but even so, I still go along with it because what I genuinely believe is that this holiday is one of the few times a year that I get to spend time with everyone I love in the family.”
Lilia sighed and gave Anne a look that seemed to be telling her she’s still too immature, which annoyed her.
“You can say that easily now but when you finally get out and live as an adult you’ll find that finding time for even bonding with the people you love is a lot of work not because it’s a hassle but because it’s hard with how different everyone’s priorities and responsibilities are.”
“Is it really okay though? Even if you do it like that?” Anne asks, unsure.
“It works for me. I know what I believe is off course from what Christmas is really about, but then again the same is for everyone. You get religious for Jesus Christ, Santa Clause and presents for kids, being nice and giving for charity, behaving good moralistically, which is kind of ironic for me on the last part, it’s almost as if December gets advertised as the month to let bygones be bygones for another reason.”
Anne mulled over her aunt Lilia’s words, she was starting to understand her a bit. Then another question came to her and she asked out of curiosity.
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“None, just you, I shared it since you seemed a little lost.”
Lilia thought, her idea may have branched off side-ways but she can be sure about what she believed in the holiday were three things; the time with the people she loved, the gifts she gives and gets, and the food that’s served at the party.
Tagalog
Tita - means Aunt
Lolo - means Grandfather
Lola - means Grandmother