Pasko ng Luwisyano - TLC Christmas Special Issue

To the Louisian Community,

Christmas has always been, without a doubt, the most anticipated time of the year. Our history tells us how joyous we become days or months before Christmas. We all have our stories and events in our lives during this season. Along with these stories are memories we share with one another. Documenting them through pictures or videos is one way of ensuring that these memories stay forever.

For this year, we will do it by narrating them through writing. What better way to present these stories than putting them together and compiling heart-warming Louisian Christmas tales, right? Therefore, we are proud to present Louisian stories from the different departments of USL that highlight how powerful the spirit of Christmas is in numerous ways. May these stories not only touch your hearts but also inspire you to always live with a cheerful heart, just like what we do during Christmas.

The Louisian Courier humbly presents our Christmas Special Issue, “Pasko ng Luwisyano”. Let this special issue serve as our Christmas present to you all. Enjoy, laugh, and have a Merry Christmas, from The Louisian Courier family to yours!

STEVE-PJ C. CARPIO Editor-in-Chief

A Peaceful and Grateful Greetings to you all!

Respectfully Yours,

The Louisian Courier

To the Louisian Community,

Merry Christmas to you all!

Everyone gets excited when Ber-months arrive. It only means that Christmas is near. Filipinos, most especially, are looking forward to the holidays. Some of us had our houses decorated with Christmas ornaments as early as September. Undeniably, we cannot hide our eagerness to celebrate the holiday cheer.

Certainly, each of us has a story to tell about Christmas. The meaningful and funfilled conversations we have around the table are the very reason why we treasure memories in our hearts. This year, our fellow Louisians prepared stories of how Christmas positively impacted their lives. As the TLC humbly present to you our Christmas Special Issue, “Pasko ng Luwisyano”, may you find inspiration and encouragement in the narratives and be reminded why Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.

We, The Louisan Courier, hope that you enjoy our humble Christmas gift to you all. Beyond the sparkling decorations, melodious carols, holiday greetings, and never-ending parties, let us celebrate Christmas with love, peace, forgiveness, and gratefulness.

Thank you, and happy holidays!

MS. KRISTINE MAE R. AUAYANG TLC Adviser

The Louisian Courier

NOT THE CHRISTMAS FOR THE LITTLE GIRL

BY SOL BANGANAY

A little girl once dreamt of a crispy fried chicken, sweet spaghetti, colorful cake, and a well-wrapped gift on Christmas day. She dreamt of a tall Christmas tree with glittery balls and blinding bright lights with a big star on top. She dreamt of a night with loud noise outside and fireworks in the sky. She wished that Santa would fill the socks she hung with candies and lollipops. Cause that’s for this little girl is Christmas all about.

For years, it’s been this little girl’s tradition to wait patiently for the Christmas season; I guess everyone does. Remember her dreams? She patiently waited for them too. Well, guess what? The little girl didn’t have them all at once, breaking her heart. She thought getting no presents, having nothing on the table, and seeing no fireworks in the sky during Christmas was the saddest moment of her life. Cause that’s for this little girl is Christmas all about.

Christmas after Christmas after Christmas, and this little girl grew up. But Christmas of the year 2018 was the most memorable one she had. She lost her father. She was devastated; she was about to graduate from college and was only starting to give the Christmas she wished for herself to her loved ones. But Santa failed to grant her wishes this time. Then she thought, that was the saddest

moment of her life. But this little girl, now grown up, is a fighter. She decided to move on, hoping that next Christmas would be better and that Santa would make her the happiest. Why won’t it be? She’ll be a degree holder by then. But Santa failed. She lost her brother days after her graduation. Then she knew that was really the saddest moment of her life.

Christmas 2019 is the saddest. She celebrated it without the men of her life. She wished for Santa not a crispy fried chicken, sweet spaghetti, colorful cake, and a wellwrapped gift on Christmas day but for comfort, for she longs for his men. Now, this is what Christmas is all about.

Christmas is now a bittersweet season for her. As she sees lovers, relatives, and friends coming home to be with their loved ones, is it too much to ask that God let his father and brother go home to be with them this Christmas? She asks. Now she didn’t want a crispy fried chicken, sweet spaghetti, colorful cake, and a well-wrapped gift, not a tall Christmas tree with glittery balls and blinding bright lights with a big star on top and probably not a night with loud noise outside and fireworks in the sky but for the presence of her father and brother this Christmas. And Santa failed to make her the happiest.

A Mother For Christmas

BY STANLEY JESUS CRISTOBAL

I

t was a starry December night; I was three. Most people won’t remember memories back when they were three years old, but mine is more evident than a memory. It was like in 4k. I remember sitting by the Christmas tree. Ours was this small two feet tree that my father placed on top of a side table; it had to flash red, blue, and green lights. I remember wearing my pajamas with a Batman motif, it was my favorite cartoon back then, and in the background, I could hear my dad talking to a woman on a Skype call; my sisters were there doting on the woman. Honestly, I didn’t really care about the woman on the screen.

Sure, I’d talk to her, but that was just it. They told me she was my mother, but there wasn’t a connection then. The only person I consider my mother is my Nanay Kikay. To some, she’s just a housemaid, but to me and my sisters Nanay was our mother; when we got sick, she was there to take care of us; when we cried, she’d be their tissue on hand, and she never ran out of sermons that till to this day I still use. I slept next to Nanay. I didn’t sleep in the bedroom where my sisters and father slept. Something in that room made me feel different, so I slept in Nanay’s room.

Morning, noon, and night I was with nanay. We were glued to the hip. But the day before, my aunt came to visit, and with her was my cousin. I saw how doting she was to my cousin, how caring she was, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel jealous. How come my real mother is on a small metal box behind a screen while my cousin’s

THE CHRISTMAS GUESTS

BY MCKEILY QUILANG

It was two nights before Christmas Day, the circumstances of which derived things to be felt and to be seen: a time of merriment, not of fear; of all best and all prudent, not of blood and of tears. The time will be near the strike of the twelfth hour, or must when the grandfather clock that stood for decades would chime audibly, as it does every midnight. Icicles hung on the gutter and the night is breezily cold, the wrenching snows bore the logs in the houses down the alley. Chimney-tops aloft are hovering fractions of the sleet of the hail storm moments ago.

Lights of such multitude sparkled in the array of doors that one, when with no foreknowledge, would thought them as pure igloos with glittering tapestries. But one of the many

are there with them, I thought about this all day, and later that night, when dad was fixing the tree, I asked Nanay, “where’s my real mom?”

She answered, “she’s far away; she needs to work” when my three-year-old self heard that, all I could think of was why she would leave. My sisters would talk about her a lot and tell stories, and I couldn’t relate cause all my life, I had no mother.

I had no memories of her, and I started to think maybe I won’t have any, she’s miles away and during that time I wanted to know her like my sisters do, does she like chocolate? or maybe she likes cartoons as much as I did? I have no fond memories to look back on because all I know about her is that she is behind that screen. I even started to consider breaking open the computer to let her out but to no avail. Instead, I sat quietly in front of our Christmas tree, looking up at the star above and wishing as salt streams poured out of my eyes that my mother would come home to me, that magically she’d appear on Christmas day outside our front door, and that I’ll open the door and she’ll hug me as tight as she could. I waited for that, Christmas day came, and no mommy was in sight. I stayed at the door all day, eventually falling asleep on the couch. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. But I made it a tradition to sit by the tree and wish because, unbeknownst to me, my Mom would come home only a year later in the summer. I know it’s too late in the year to say it’s a Christmas miracle, but in a sense, it was; I got to do the things I only dreamed of. I had my Mom, and now I have memories to cherish and a mother to look at them with.

houses, one could be thought as remarkably built; the towering chimneys, the lattice of the windows, the plants that surround, the broad-weltered bricks, the very everything is of beauty; it was The Schopenhauer House.

They were not, as far as my knowledge goes, not rich, but certainly, in no way, poor. The front door was designed baroque and antiquely-polished with French chisels; above it were artificial vines dangling from a hook where a lantern was placed, so huge, that the head of one visitor thumbed into

its edge. There were bells, and its sledges could be heard from afar jingling and twinkling to the ears. Back to where it is, Oh! There, upon entry, the inside is scented with a rich smell of an orchid garland mixed with a plush of lavender. The sofa is covered with a Scottish-polished fabric tightly sewn, and it is the most frequent spot where the older Schopenhauer used to lay his body after a tiring work before he died, two days near Christmas Eve of the last year, murder supposedly. It is said in a supposing manner for no investigations or so other could be the truest of them all. Old enough was he, when, told by the accounts of his daughter, Cosima, suffered a heart disease and succumbed to it. Of course, it is understood that given an age as such, one could hardly gain recovery. The man was unemployed long ago, but he loathes and even curses people who call him not in sane, or prudently idiotic; in a sense he was an abuser, an alcoholic, an atheistic, a madly foolish scholar who devours knowledge and books and all with masterful command of the Classics. He kept a bust of the poets Homer and Milton, and of the Dutch scholar Erasmus remarkably; a personality compared to Dr. Faustus, but with an exception

of an imaginary figure he talks almost every single-handed night, chants some Latin phrases mimicking the voices of the three witches in Macbeth, and its silhouette is seen in the mirror by passerby-s, the ultimate formulation of their thought of him as not in sane. Every quarter of the month, he was visited and brought flowers by Cosima in an unmarked grave with only the initials bearing D.S., plowed in the corners but alone in a farther way of the cemetery. His burial place was interned across the yard of some four morticians without a casket, un-embalmed, and with an odiously puncturing smell of a gloating body for months, but mind, he is only mourned for a week! Her daughter could be as well thought as with the same, undifferentiated kind as her father, and ought to seek the deplorable action of the suspicion of death of the Old Man, with her feelings only mixed with rage and revenge. The winter of this year would be sorrowed by his passing: the laughs, the bonds, the smiles shared, now would be retreated to a grave. The Rustickus is the name they claim their business of which fortune brings, with the many an old, vintage items collectible for everyone.

Once an hour passed, the bustles of the street flung the narrow crowded passage which would lead to a rugged, almost rustic in appearance and quaint in odor shop of the family. There, with body motionless upon the wooden door, peering, is a child, with innocent disposition: his eyes filled in curiosity, his body in childish demeanor. Let it be bore in mind that this little man is with nobody, nor with thick-embossed overcoat or headpiece to protect him from the

wheezing cold. Seeing him, has drawn into thought which cannot be resisted from childhood what she might bear.

“What do you want to buy, son?” asked Cosima with an outstretched smile, and with lower limbs bent.

“Nothing, madame. I only wanted the pleasantness of your store.” responded he.

“You look like my deceased father, given, of course, when he was young.” said she.

“Deceased? Dead? Long dead down? he asked with a grin of shock in his face.

“He is, once I woke, and he is gone.” she uttered as she lightly stretched her body upwardly. “So, I dare say, darlin’, nobody in Earth leaves with no trace in them, so more of a legacy.”

“Which cause did he die from?”

“Murder, son. Murder.” she told him in a whispering tone. “But if you ask who the assailants are, that I know not of, son.” heartily she said, with idle smile.

The child seemed rashly used of the incident, as he talks of such intrigue with a conversation only sought-after for the elders. And, observed in every gesture he made, he looks aback, secondfor-second, seemingly afar, with signage on the face.

“Who do you look at?” asked Cosima, yet he responded nothing and jocundly smiled.

A gust of sudden wind blew that the logs nailed overboard shrieked with rankling sounds, repeatedly, so long as there is wind. She left the child unattended near the entrance of the place, and fixed the spots where the slightly gale-forced air breathed so frantically.

“Oh, do you think I will be home alive with this thing that obstructed my way?” said a man and a woman, who are, based on their demeanors, buyers. The reason, a thing that flutters above the door that might hit the face.

The man being with broad physique, manly, bearded with a lightly-shaved mustache, in a sleeved waistcoat and a cravat buttoned like

a shawl wrapped round his neck; in his head is a brown fedora hat, and his eyes with small spectacles. His wife, is with a flaxen curly topped hair, with interlaced English dress, and a cloth gloves that wrapped her palms; and judging their appearances and ways of etiquette, are theatregoers: they seemed barons and baronesses. But if they really are, what then do they have business in such rugged shop as hers? The older man is somehow learned in diverse arrays of human knowledge: how he speaks, he gestures, he with scowling actions. Does it bear any resemblance? Does that make something out your memory? Oh! Cosima’s father. However, what will it be with all possibility, when he is long dead?

Straight from a facetious temper with lobsterlike boggling eyes without spectacles is Cosima, not the reason of some unknown child, nor the visitors, but of her lost jewelry of tufted gold and a string of bronze, gifted by her father. While in her drowsy mindfulness, she was struck as a pistol in the side of a person, not necessarily a real gun-powdered armor, but a jewelry the same as hers, a bracelet, set in tiny rattling chains, and its pendant, crescent-shaped, bearing her initial as shape-like. Solemnly, when they faced her, she acted as if she devises not a plan of theft: and only out of desperation, as once as she would want that small thing swinging down the backpockets.

Wearied of her tiresome labor the whole day, if it must be so, she mounted her body on the bed, and lay unmoved, until she slept uninterruptedly. Clouds of coal-smokes, fumes of greyish airs, and the opaqueness of the surroundings alarmed her body. Unfortunately, they only exist in her mind, most in her deep-phased sleep. A face can be conceived but not be seen, scarce but not dimmed; bearded and comely. Dreaming, as she felt, a voice spoke but soft. There came a somewhat clamor downstairs, someone forcibly barging the interlocked doors of the shop; firstly, she awoke and neither make any action: all silence broke for few a second. The second force is somehow louder than before, there it came, inevitably, an alarm out through her that someone might, out in literal sense, murder her, with no known knowledge to cause, or a burglar, there with concrete cause of robbery. The blanket filled with perspiration as her heart pounds in every second of a second. Now, with temporary bravery, scolded the person whom was accusatory of a crime and, if there were any, conspirators whom have led into such horrid act.

“Who are you? Speak!” yelled she, echoing down the adjoining chamber. It was repeated, louder than the capability of her throat, and near the break of the higher decibel.

“Speak, you twatted moron!” she added. “Tell me your reason! Now!”

Merry Christmas! I have a present for you. Open! Outside, ‘tis cold and wrenching!” resounded the unknown guest.

“I shall not open the door, if I do, the gift I only get, and flung the door forcefully out your face!” she said with a trace of worry and misery.

The next voice with a somehow repeatable hosts of a familiar tone, reverberated the whole house. It was coincidentally as his father’s, but how! He has been dead for more than a year and surely his body putrefies down with maggots and rims of worms in the loamy soil. Associating this, tacked herself out the blanket, put his sleepers on, and the necklace whom he relates to him. The knocking and the barging continues as she approaches, aiming for the lament of his dear father out the track of the hopeless wintry night, and espy onto his grave the next summer. Few yards apace the door, her sullened heart wrestled with her mind on whether it would be much a benefit to open the door, and not to fling it bloating his face, for as he believed, is her dearest Papa. Behind the curtain drape, her back, she rested, without retentive action faced the dreary hall unlit with no candlelight or lantern or lamp or torch.

Wide, the door she opened, stood with foreign garment, a man, with a pistol: true, powder-funneled pistol.

“Happy Christmas Eve, Cosima!” thereafter the words spoken, the shot of the gun consigned her to committal. Cosima is dead; dead ere her prime. Her murder brought the scene with Volumnia in Coriolanus. A boy-son’s death therein the scene of young Arthur from King John. Hamlet is Hamnet Shakespeare, whose premature passing made sorrows to the Bard. Whom as the girls in The Tempest, or then in Pericles, or then in Winter’s Tale can be redeemed. Who Cleopatra, gleaned of Egypt, Juliet to her Romeo, and Cressid and Venus as we may guess. The conspirator flew out the scene and strutted as a normal man, without bearing a conceivable sin, when plainly seen in sight.

A thunder sponged the balmy frosts, and a lightning blazed in ruddy, trailing light. The rumors of her death are heightened when, at first hand, the spectators saw the body, swimming in blood, plunged with a bullet in the left lobe of the head, and in the upper chest.

The noon now fled, and a hearse stopped affronting the house, and the body be picked, disposed, and the spot cleaned. Without the mead of joy, it will be ten hours before Christmas Day. That afternoon unleashed a beautiful setting sun, diffused with some billows of smokes.

For it was Christmas Day: all people joyous, animals leaped highly, and violin-strings play melodious quartets, voices sing chorales, bells in an abbey chime with desirous tones.

How then can we forget the shop left in decay, whom with no name bore, can be called “The Rustickus”.

The house in the evening with no humans inside can be conceived with the presence of ghosts. With much merriment, rosy-cheeked flowers engrossed the tables, and into it circling are wreaths puffed into candles glistening in the window: the perfection suited in the every ceiling is luscious and fragrant; hung above are old Scottish fabrics used as bedsteads and clothes where all from the tiniest and the biggest jolly, and shook with the icy, misty breeze. Tables are filled with rich ornaments of food: all poultry, all meat, all barrels of sausages, all plums, all puddings, all fruits, all bowls of spoonful punches of cranberries, of tenderloins, of wellingtons, of raviolis, of all plentitude of wines and champagnes, dross with luxuriance in everything. The wide adornments are crested from the best and most reverent of purchases. The unseen beings danced and danced with waltzes, with tangos, with polonaises, with minuets, and trip in the feet silly delight. Visitors came, only two, humans with flesh, welcomed stately with a march from Strauss; when they, assailants of the two dead, and all murdered in the very house sprung in there. Yet no word aptly spoken, none!

Time is, for much as this, flocked us in Christmas Time of perhaps left the world with nothing to never see nor touch nor feel; the very cohesion, the very bond, the fruition of love from the fullness of heart abounds. The time where all the pallid morns jostle in separate ways, and all things done, to be done, and yet be done, be done in doing so.

“Merry Christmas, everybody! Cheers!”

“God save us all!” he exclaimed.

A CHRISTMAS SECRET

BY SHERIDAN IRISH MANGONON

I used to believe in Santa Claus. I used to believe that he’s way up in the North Pole making gifts with his elves that he’ll deliver with his reindeers and that I need to be nice if I wanted one.

I don’t believe in him anymore.

You see it was a cold Christmas evening, back when I was way younger than I am now, when I discovered the secret the adults kept from us children. I learned the secret of Santa. Before that night I was a jovial kid, though I was more interested in reading than actually playing with my peers. I would try to be as nice as I can to people, I would be courteous with my elders, I would help other kids, and just be good in general because I want Santa to give me gifts… and also because I know I would be in the naughty list that year.

It’s a bit embarrassing to say but I know that I’ve been bad that year. Not problematic, no, but I do remember constantly fighting with my brother even after my parents would tell me to stop. I wouldn’t start the fights myself, but I would let myself be goaded into one, then proceed to do the goading once my parents turn their backs after scolding us. While I was nice to other people, I wasn’t being nice to my brother, and my parents in extension. I’m sure I also did a lot of other things that year that I just don’t quite remember anymore. Anyways, I had a feeling that Santa wouldn’t like what I was doing and was pretty sure that I’d be getting coals that Christmas.

But then something happened. I discovered a huge box hidden above a cabinet on one of the rooms at our house. It was practically my size all wrapped up in this beautiful green wrapping with small reindeers in it. It’s a GIFT! But surely it couldn’t be, it’s not even midnight yet and Santa still

hasn’t come, so how could there be a gift already? And so I asked my aunt about it but she kept quiet and took me out of the room. I couldn’t really understand what was happening but I let it go.

Soon it was near midnight and we just finished eating, then my mom called out from outside, “Look! Si Santa!” and all of us children rushed outside. But something in me was still sceptical, so I peeked inside the house while the children were staring up at the sky looking for Santa. There I discovered the secret.

It was my dad and my aunts bringing out gifts from the room I was in earlier, and there were so much more than just the one I saw. There were smaller ones in red, some larger ones in gold, then I saw it, the huge one wrapped in glorious green with reindeers. Soon I discovered that the huge gift was for me, and on it was a note that read “To: Irish, from: Santa”. I was confused because I knew Santa didn’t bring that gift. It was already there earlier and it was my family that brought it out. I fell asleep that night wondering the mysteries of Christmas.

But now that I’m all grown, I believe that I know better now. I no longer believe in Santa, because he doesn’t deserve the credit he’s given. It was my parents, my family that went through the effort of looking for appropriate gifts they’ll know I’ll like. They spent their money and time and effort trying to make the gifts as pretty and as enjoyable to unwrap as possible. They didn’t care that I was a little mean, they didn’t care that I was a bit bad, because even when they had to scold me and lecture me countless times, they still thought I was worthy of a gift. There were no elves, no reindeers, no magic, all there was were my family, and I can honestly say that I cannot think of anything better

CHRISTMAS TREE

BY DRIXLER T. RIVERA

Hindi ko lubos maiwaksi sa aking isipan ang akala ko’y magiging masayang pasko na nauwi sa ‘di inaasahang pagkalugmok. Isang taon na ang nagdaan mula noong ako’y naulila sa aking lolo. Subalit sa tuwing ako’y napatititig o kaya’y napasusulyap sa kaniyang larawang abot- tainga ang ngiti, tila ako’y nabibihag pa rin ng lungkot at nalulunod sa sakit. Kung kailan tumayog ang christmas tree sa bahay ay siya namang pagpanaw ng isa sa mga mahal ko sa buhay.

Musmos pa lamang ay hindi ko na maikubli ang sabik na nadarama sa tuwing papalapit na ang kapaskuhan. Sa murang edad, hindi ko pa lubos matanaw ang malalim na kahulugan ng pasko. Ang alam ko lang ay kailangang bumangon ng alas tres ng umaga upang dumalo ng misa de gallo habang pilit na linalaban ang antok. Sa likod ng antok, ay isang hiling na mariin kong hinahangad na matupad - ang magkaroon ng sariling christmas tree sa bahay. Marahil dahil nakumpleto ko ang siyam na misa, dininig ng Maykapal ang aking dalangin.

Buwan ng Nobyembre pa lamang noon ay ramdam ko na ang pasko. Mga ilaw na kumukutitap sa daan, makukulay na palamuting nakasabit sa mga bahaybahay, at samahan pa ng maginaw na panahon. Kung kaya’t isa rin sa aking mga inaabangan tuwing pasko ay ang aming paghahanda.

Malinaw pa sa aking alaala ang unang christmas tree na aking nasaksihan sa aming bahay noong ako’y pitong taon na gulang pa lamang. Tuwing gigising sa umaga, ako’y uupo sa aming sala at pagmamasdan lamang ang aming christmas tree na sinabitan ng mga bolang balot ng kinang at iba’t ibang kulay, at ang gintong star na nakasabit sa tuktok nito. Dumating ang pasko at saksi ang christmas tree na ito sa bawat halakhak at kulitang bumalot sa aming tahanan noong gabing iyon. Lahat ng aking mga pinsan, tita at tito ay kasama naming nagdiwang. Tila kay bilis ng oras ng gabing iyon para sa aming pamilya.

Nagdaan ang mga taon, at kasabay ng pagtungtong ng mga kapatid ko sa High School ay ang siya namang paglaki ng christmas tree sa bahay. Ang dating luntiang christmas tree ay naging matingkad na pula, ubod ng kinang at ‘di na kailangan pang sabitan ng kung anu-anong palamuti. Sa loob ng mga taòng kasama namin ang pulang christmas tree ay tila naging madalas na lamang ang pagdalo ng ibang miyembro ng aming pamilya upang ipagdiwang ang pasko. Naging masmaingay ang mga paputok, busina ng mga sasakyan, at pagihip ng mga torotot kumpara sa mga tawanan at kulitan ng mga nagdaang pasko. Makinang at simple ang alala ko sa pula, subalit hindi pa rin nito mapapantayan ang mga nakalipas na kapaskuhan.

Dumating ang araw na nagtapos ng pag-aaral ang aking mga kapatid. Sa wakas ay nagbunga rin ang paghihirap at pagod ng aking mga ate at kuya sa kolehiyo, at lalo na ng aming ina, lolo’t lola sa walang humpay na pagsuporta sa pag abot ng aming mga pangarap. Sa dami ng nangyari nang mga nakaraang taon, hindi ko napansing tumayog pa ng sobra ang christmas tree sa bahay. Subalit, hindi na ito pula. Isang luntiang kumikinang na pawang ginto, at halos maabot na ang kisame ng bahay sa taas nito.

Gayun pa man, hindi naging madali para sa aking pamilya ang pagdiriwang ng pasko kasama ang matayog na christmas tree sa bahay. Taong 2021, isang taon mula nung tuluyang balubugin ang bansa ng nakamamatay na pandemya, naging tahimik, matamlay, at tila mas ramdam ang ginaw ng pasko. Sa parehong taon, muling nagsamasama ang lahat ng miyembro ng aming pamilya.

Kay dami na ng pinagbago ng bawat isa, at ‘di ko lubos maikubli ang galak nang makita ko sila. Subalit kasabay ng pagkagalak sa tuwing darating ang bawat pamilya ng aming angkan sa bahay ay may tutulong luha na ‘di masusukat ng anumang emosyon ang bigat na dala nito.

Tatlong buwan bago ang pasko ay pumanaw ang ang aking minamahal na lolo. Ang taong tinanataw

ko ng malaking utang na loob sa pagpapalaki sa amin ng maayos, at sa pagtatanggol at pagsuporta sa amin hindi lamang bilang isang lolo sa kaniyang mga apo ngunit bilang isang tatay. Ang muling pagsasama ng bawat miyembro ng aming pamilya ay binalot ng lungkot, pait, at pighati.

Sa darating na kapaskuhan, saksi ang matayog na christmas tree sa aming bahay sa mga pagsubok na hinarap at nalagpasan ng aming pamilya. Marahil hindi mawawala ang bakas ng nagdaang taon, subalit mananatili pa rin sa aking puso’t isipan ang mga magagandang alaala ng paskong aking kinagisnan kasama ang aming lolo. Hindi man ito kasing ingay ng mga paputok, kasing galak ng mga busina, kasing liwanag ng mga ilaw sa daan, o kasing kinang ng christmas tree sa bahay, ubod pa rin ang aming pasko ng pag-ibig, pananampalataya sa diyos, at pasasalamat.

Sa patuloy na pagtayog o paglaki ng christmas tree sa aming bahay, patuloy din kami sa pag abot ng aming mga pangarap, at sa pag abot ng pangarap ng aming mga magulang sa amin lalo na ng aming lolo. Sa bandang huli, ang tunay na diwa ng pasko ay hindi nakikita sa ganda ng liwanag ng mga Christmas Light, sa ganda ng mga parol na nakasabit sa gilid ng bintana, mga Christmas Tree na napaliligiran ng mga magagandang abubut kundi sa isang pamilya na buo na sabay sabay nag diriwang ng pasko. Masaya ang pasko kung kumpleto, sama samang kumakain sa hapag kainan, nagtatawanan, nagkukuwentuhan, at binabalikan ang mga masasayang sandali.

Sa pagdiriwang ng pasko, nawa’y matanaw ng bawat isa ang halaga ng buhay, panahon, at pamilya. Walang anumang christmas tree ang makapapantay sa alaalang hatid ng pasko. Ngayong kapaskuhan, buksan natin ang ating mga puso’t isipan, at sabayan ang ligalig ng dambana bilang papuri sa pagdating ni Kristo sa ating buhay.

Merry Christmas, Louisians!

MAY THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS BE ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS

The Louisian Courier tlc@usl.edu.ph

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