Christmas Then and Now

This picture was taken in 2009.  It was our first Christmas here in Australia.

The kids were between 16 and 8.

This was the picture from last year.  

The young adults are now between 27 and 19.

 

Concert and Light Show at St. Mary's

Here is the light show in action.

The Jesse Tree

During the season of Advent, Christmas trees and Nativity sets are placed in churches.

At St. Patrick's, they set up a Jesse Tree. 

A new ornament is added daily.

Learn more about the Jesse Tree here.

Jesse Tree at St. Patrick's Parish, Church Hill

03 January 2017

Enter the BER months

In the home country, Christmas carols can be heard as early as 01 September.

It is to signal the arrival of the "BER" months.

They are not playing Christmas music just yet over here

but I did find Christmas decor being sold at Target today.

Twinkle, Twinkle Times 144,000

I expected it to be a busy Friday the 13th yesterday so I went to an earlier morning mass and headed for the office after.  Instead of my usual (pass through the Priceline chemist shop to get a free spritz of perfume for the day) route, I decided to go through the (let's do some sightseeing and window shopping) Queen Victoria Building route instead.  

I picked up a QVB catalog just for the heck of it and browsed it on my way to work. Naturally the catalog would have something about the Swarovski Christmas Tree that was on display.  The  huge Christmas tree which fascinated me when I first saw it in 2010 stands tall in the middle of the building, you'd be blind if you missed it.  

As I browsed the catalog, the number 144,000 stuck in my head. The tree boasted 144,000 Swarovski crystal ornaments and 60,000 twinkling lights.  Wow!  (But really the 144,000 in my mind was something like 12 squared times 1,000.  Don't ask me why but that was my thought process when I saw the number. )

Fast forward to lunchtime.  For the first time since I started work, the Group was going to have a Christmas lunch sponsored by the company.  (Nice!)  We were told this was a "sit down" lunch and we were to have the meal in the room.  In other words, we could not just get food and return to our work stations to eat.   In fact, we were advised that there would be games and prizes involved during this gathering.   Teams were assigned based on the table where one was seated.   

There was a Christmas trivia with six questions : (1) In the song "Twelve Days of Christmas", what did my true love give to me on the 3rd day of Christmas? (2) What colour is the Grinch? (3)  What are you riding while you are "dashing through the snow"? (4) Who wrote the Christmas Carol?  (5) How many ghosts visited Ebenezer Scrooge?  (6)  Who was the last ghost that visited Ebenezer Scrooge.  

(I have a feeling we would have done better at this game when we were in grade school or high school.  None of the teams got all the answers correctly.)

The second game was a guessing game.  How many Swarovski crystals are there in the QVB Christmas tree?  Clue : It is between 100,000 and 150, 000.   

(Guess whose team won that game?)  

The last game was charades where they words to be guessed were Christmas-related. There were easy ones like snowman, Christmas tree, and star. There were harder ones like wreath, milk, etc. Then there were the tough ones which people did not get like biscuits, joy, left-overs.   There were some words which my brain did not immediately comprehend as being related to Christmas such as SUMMER and SAND.

(Note to self : Wake up!  You live in Australia now.  Christmas is still in December but December is during the summertime therefore think SAND and not snow!)

Our table tied with another table for the charades game.  So there was a dance-off to break the tie.  Since we had won the previous game, the rest of the team voted for the other guy.

There was a lucky number door prize draw and a "guess how many lollies in this jar" game ... then it was back to work.

Ho!  Ho!  Ho!  Merry Christmas!

This is the tree that won our team some chocolates.

The More (Coffee) The Merrier (Christmas Planner)

I'm really not a coffee addict.  However, I do drink more coffee these days than I used to when we were back in the home country.  MacGyver and I actually have several containers of instant coffee in the house now.  We would have Nescafe like normal people do, Decaf for the times when we feel like having coffee but know we need to sleep, and the occasional date coffee such as Moccona or Nescafe Gold for the times when we want to share something special.   (We are simple folk.)

I often tell MacGyver that I prefer it when he prepares my coffee.  No, I am not being lazy about boiling water and preparing coffee.  It's just that I feel my coffee doesn't taste as nice when I make it myself. (I think he sprinkles an extra bit of love in there, making my coffee taste better than when I make my own.)

Anyway, I realised that I only really started drinking coffee in 2008 as documented in my blog post Coffee, Coffee, and that since writing Not Just Any Cup of Coffee , I have increased my coffee chain statistics as follows :

Previously ONE, currently two, or possibly even three.  I joined Sunshine and her husband at the Starbucks along Timog Avenue when we went home for Father and Mother's 50th anniversary in 2011.  We had a nice long talk. That one I know for sure.  Then back in 2010, I vaguely recall walking into a Starbucks with some of my officemates. One of them wanted to try the green tea latte.  They were a bunch of coffeeholics so I must have joined them for a cup of coffee that day. Let's call it THREE then.  I actually passed up a possible fourth when we had a mini-reunion last September. I was with two classmates from High School.  We had lunch then we walked around the city.  Before heading home, one of them offered to treat us to Starbucks.  However, since none of us were really THAT into coffee, we opted for bubble tea instead.  (It just shows where Starbucks is in our list of places to frequent.)

I have added Gloria Jean's to my coffee chains sampled. In fact, I believe I have had TWO cups of coffee from here.  The first time was with my sister-in-law when we bumped into each other at the mall and a second time with a friend who works in the same floor as I do and lives nearby.  I often see her at the church in our parish and we went for coffee one Saturday after mass. I had almost gotten a third one when the trader from Tokyo came to visit Sydney.  He wanted to meet us bearing cups of coffee but he had only ordered four.  He regularly deals with three of us and did not realise there were two other members in the team.  One of my colleagues was absent that day and since I knew the trader needed his coffee fix more than I did, I let him have the fourth cup.  

Anyway, since Christmas is fast approaching, the Starbucks Planner is a hot topic once again.  I remember former officemates in Manila going out for coffee and rejoicing when they had earned enough points to redeem a planner.   I suppose some people just really drink a LOT of coffee or some people just really WANT to get a planner.

I found these myManila infographics interesting.   They illustrate the cheapest way to get the planner/s based on the mechanics of the planner promo and the cheapest drinks on the menu. 

In summary : 

2012 -- PHP140 Short Peppermint Mocha; PHP95 Short Brewed Coffee

(Option 1) PHP 2,020 - 9 Christmas Drinks + 8 Core Beverages

(Option 2) PHP 2,185 - 23 Core Beverages

2013 -- PHP140 Short Toffee Nut Latte; PHP 85 Short Brewed Coffee

PHP 1,940 - 9 Christmas Drinks + 8 Core Beverages

2014 - PHP140 Short Gingerbread Latte; PHP 85 - Short Brewed Coffee

PHP 2,025 -  9 Christmas Drinks + 9 Core Beverages

What do we conclude?

1. Short brewed coffee was more expensive in 2012. ( I wonder if the cup was bigger then.)  
2. The selection of cheapest Christmas Drinks have changed over the years.  I don't know enough to make any comments on the popularity,  taste, size, or even the cost of these drinks.
3. Based on the additional information provided in the 2014 version, there is an increased consciousness over the calories that come with the planner.   
4. Regardless of cost, kind, or number of cups, if people want to get a planner, they will.

The Piano Guys

It's the First week of Advent so Christmas music is more than appropriate.

This is what happens when you have one piano and four piano guys.

More O Christmas Tree

While I was looking through some stuff, I found this ...

(aren't my boys adorable?)

which of course, led to this ...

(oh ... still so cute!)

Mind you, I had to WAIT to get this shot.

I grabbed my camera and went downstairs as soon as I found the old photo.

However, GI was in the middle of a PC game.

He promised to call me when he was ready for a photo shoot.

(Humph!)

(Bah! Humbug!)

True to his word, he came up after a couple of minutes

and announced that he was ready.

Ü

O Christmas Tree

The tradition of trimming the Christmas tree was something I loved as a child. We always had a fairly tall Christmas tree set up in one of the corners of the living room at Cebu Avenue. The Christmas tree itself was stored somewhere downstairs while the boxes with our Christmas ornaments were stashed in the cabinet in the study room above our pigeon holes.

Once Mother decreed that the tree was to be set up, the tree would be brought upstairs and the Christmas decor would be brought down.

Assembling the Christmas tree would require sorting the branches by size. The longer ones belong on the lower part of the tree while the shorter ones would go towards the top. These were laid out on the floor of the living room the connected to the tree trunk. (As the years wore on and the plastic got brittle, some of the branches needed slings to keep them up. Eventually the tree looked like a scene from a World War 2 movie and Father decided it was time to get a replacement.)

Over the years, we managed to gather an assortment of Christmas ornaments. There never seemed to be a rhyme or a reason to our decoration but there was always much love that went into decorating the tree. I took a picture of our Christmas tree almost every year. (I just don't know where that set is anymore. Maybe one day I will find those pictures.)

When I got married and moved out of Cebu Avenue, it is quite possible that for our first Christmas we didn't even purchase a tree. GI was only three months old then and we didn't think he'd mind if we didn't have a tree. Besides, most of the Christmas season was spent at Quezon City anyway.

I do remember that when GI was one year old, we purchased Christmas lights because GI loved watching them blink. Eventually we got a small tree to put the lights on. By the time RD arrived, our Christmas tree was in full swing with Christmas lights that played a selection of Christmas carols. What MyGirl remembers is the beautiful star that went on top of our tree.

Growing up, we would find gifts from siblings, parents and Santa under our Christmas tree. For GI, RD and MyGirl, the trees with the most number of gifts for them have always been outside our house. These would be gifts from the grandparents, the uncles and the aunts. In Manila, we would always be at Project 7 (MacGyver's parents' place) on Christmas eve then we'd be at my parents' place at Cebu Avenue for Christmas morning and most of Christmas Day. Now that we are in Australia, Christmas (and similar occasions) are spent at the house of close relations. As a result, the tree at home doesn't have the same impact on the children as it did on me as a child.

Nonetheless, there would be no excuse not to put up a Christmas tree at home. We got a nice hand-me-down tree with some Christmas decor last year after we arrived. I surprised the family about a week before Christmas and set up the tree one evening. I put the Christmas balls we had brought from Manila and added a star I had purchased when I was on leave last November. I let the kids add whatever other decor they wanted.

I have to admit, at times I do wish that I could give the children more, especially on Christmas. But it warms my heart to see that they happily accept the modest gifts we are able to offer them.

Maybe in the years to come I will put more thought into the decorating of the Christmas tree. For now, I will just enjoy the Christmas tree other people put up to see.

This one is at the Queen Victoria Building across my office. The QVB has three floors. At the ground floor, you can only see the base of the tree. You would have to be at the second or third floor of the building to see the star on top of the tree.

Here is the tree from the second floor looking up...
... and looking down.

This is a 'close up' of the top of the tree taken from the third floor.

(08 Jan 2011)

I decided I wanted to take a few extra shots of the Queen Victoria Building Christmas tree just to show how beautiful it is.

This is the base of the tree ...

while this shows the tree from top to bottom.

Symphony of Bells

It is the first day of September. If we were in Manila, I am sure there would have been Christmas carols playing on the radio or possibly Christmas decor out on display some place.

As for me, I am reminded of my perpetual desire to own a Mr. Christmas Symphony of Bells music box.

I remember that blasted BPI ATM at the Greenhills Shopping mall that wouldn't dispense P1,200 so that I could buy the Disney Christmas bells which played Christmas carols. Not only did it not dispense my cash, it debited my account and it took two weeks for me to retrieve the money. (You know how long it takes to do recon.) Then by the time I got the cash, the Christmas bells were gone.

I figure if I can't have the Symphony of Bells, I could still enjoy its music.

Christmas Past

I have always, always spent Christmas at Cebu Avenue. This is the first Christmas I have spent away from home. As you know, we are starting anew and now I have a new place to call home. (Or is it 'Now I have to call a new place home'?)

Although we did have a very good Christmas here, I think my mind will always wander back to the Cebu Avenue living room on Christmas mornings. We would wake everyone up at the wee hours of the morning and check out the gifts under the Christmas tree. As children, we never did the Noche Buena thing so waking up at 5:30am was not a big issue. We wanted to be able to open gifts as early as possible and have enough time to take breakfast before catching the 9 am mass.

We used to have piles of gifts under the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree would be in the corner on a Christmas tree skirt with all our names. (Was I the one who practiced my calligraphy and made outlines of our names on the tree skirt? Did we paint it using the Tri-Chem? I don't remember now.) The tree would have been put up some time early December and decorated with an assortment of Christmas ornament gathered through the years. A star would be placed on the top of the tree and the lights would go around. As gifts were received from godparents, family and friends, these were placed under the tree.

On Christmas Eve, family members would place his/her gifts for the others under the tree before going to sleep on Christmas eve. Imagine ten people giving gifts to nine other people. (RD's math tells me that there would be at least ninety gifts under the tree!). Our gifts would often be simple (hair clips or stickers or the like), practical (T-shirts or books), whimsical (puzzles) or fun (toys or games). If bigger gifts were in the Christmas list, siblings would pitch in and split the cost so that the gift could be bought. The wrapper would range from fancy Betsy Clark (either for or from London Eye) to practical Manila Bulletin (signature Slash-M and J). If it were wrapped "innovatively", in all likelihood, Mindy was the giver of the gift (Snap-Wrap has yet to be patented). We would play the Ray Conniff Christmas CD (I have a copy of the CD with me and perhaps this is the first year I have not played it since it is still in its shipping box) and sing along and "... count our blessings instead of sheep." If it was cold on that particular Christmas morning, we would look for the blue mink blanket (which I believe is with Eldest Sis now).

Someone would be in charge of distributing gifts. Names would be called out and piles of gifts would be formed in the living room. When all the gifts had been distributed, we would wake Father and Mother up (if they were not yet awake) and then we would open our gifts. My memory fails me ... I don't know if we opened gifts one by one or if everybody opened their gifts at the same time. All I know is that by the time Mother called us for breakfast, there was wrapping paper and gifts galore all over the floor.

Breakfast would usually include food we had received as Christmas gifts -- ensaymada, ham, apples, oranges, grapes, etc. If we were lucky, we'd have hot chocolate as part of our meal.

Christmas mass would be the 9am mass at Twin Hearts. After which we would be preparing for Christmas lunch. (Yes, more food.)

Christmas lunch was special because relatives we hardly see during the year would make the effort to drop by and have lunch with us. There was always a lot of food because we are quite a big clan and we never really knew who would come. I think Mother's invitation was never really RSVP. It was more "you know where to find us, if you are free for lunch, come on over."

Father's brother would come with his family, usually bringing extra fruits or dessert. Most of the other visitors were Mother's cousins and their families. Sometimes family friends would find their way to the house and join us. We had a particular aunt who would often come home for Christmas from the US. She was always fun to have around. And prior to one of her sons taking up photography, she would be the one pulling out her camera and calling everyone for a group photo. As things turned digital, she was still holding on to her camera with film and manual focus. (I should ask her to scan our family photos over the years. That would be a sight to see.)

This family gathering has dwindled to fewer relatives in the recent years as more of my generation has gotten married. I suppose many have conflicting lunch obligations, some have moved away, others are probably just too tired from the Christmas Eve activities. Regardless of the number of people, if I know Mother, rain or shine she will prepare Christmas lunch and will welcome those who comes over for Christmas lunch with open arms.

Music and Magic

We were at the choir loft on Christmas Eve. No, we weren't part of the choir but we were allowed to stay in the "CHOIR MEMBERS ONLY" seats to be near MacGyver's mom who was playing the organ.

MacGyver's mom is still very active in the Music Ministry. Aside from playing the organ during the mass, she really takes the time to train the choir(s). She has been doing this since MacGyver and his siblings were children. (Naturally, they were part of the choir). Now that all of them have grown up and most of the children are married, it is not very often that MIL has family members up in the choir loft with her.

MacGyver felt it would make her happy to see us there, so we opted to join MIL for the Christmas eve mass. There I was, standing between GI and RD with MyGirl in front of me. I could hear MacGyver sing all these unfamiliar songs in Latin during the High Mass. He actually knew the songs the choir members were singing (even if the rest of the congregation was quiet). It made me think... it seems there are still a lot of things I don't know about MacGyver.

Well, MyGirl learned a couple of things there as well. She found out that chimes, maracas, triangles, tambourines and boom boxes could become part of the mass.

Here she is with her instrument of choice. Of all of the instruments she saw that evening, her favorite one was the chimes. (I love chimes, too, but that is another story.)

True Meaning of Christmas

Just a week before Christmas I had a visitor. This is how it happened. I just finished the household chores for the night and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a noise in the front of the house. I opened the door to the front room and to my surprise, Santa himself stepped out next to the fireplace.

"What are you doing?" I started to ask. The words choked up in my throat and I saw he had tears in his eyes. His usual jolly manner was gone. Gone was the eager, boisterous soul we all know. He then answered me with a simple statement . . .

"TEACH THE CHILDREN!" I was puzzled. What did he mean? He anticipated my question and with one quick movement brought forth a miniature toy bag from behind the tree. As I stood bewildered, Santa said, "Teach the children!

Teach them the old meaning of Christmas. The meaning that now-a-days Christmas has forgotten. "Santa then reached in his bag and pulled out a FIR TREE and placed it before the mantle. "Teach the children that the pure green color of the stately fir tree remains green all year round, depicting the everlasting hope of mankind, all the needles point heavenward, making it a symbol of man's thoughts turning toward heaven."

He again reached into his bag and pulled out a brilliant STAR. "Teach the children that the star was the heavenly sign of promises long ago. God promised a Savior for the world, and the star was the sign of fulfillment of His promise."

He then reached into his bag and pulled out a CANDLE. "Teach the children that the candle symbolizes that Christ is the light of the world, and when we see this great light we are reminded of He who displaces the darkness."

Once again he reached into his bag and removed a WREATH and placed it on the tree. "Teach the children that the wreath symbolizes the real nature of love. Real love never ceases. Love is one continuous round of affection."

He then pulled from his bag an ORNAMENT of himself. "Teach the children that I, Santa Claus, symbolize the generosity and good will we feel during the month of December."

He then brought out a HOLLY LEAF. "Teach the children that the holly plant represents immortality. It represents the crown of thorns worn by our Savior. The red holly berries represent the blood shed by Him.

Next he pulled from his bag a GIFT and said, "Teach the children that God so loved the world that he gave his begotten son." Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.

Santa then reached in his bag and pulled out a CANDY CANE and hung it on the tree. "Teach the children that the candy cane represents the shepherds' crook. The crook on the staff helps to bring back strayed sheep to the flock. The candy cane is the symbol that we are our brother's keeper."

He reached in again and pulled out an ANGEL. "Teach the children that it was the angels that heralded in the glorious news of the Savior's birth. The angels sang Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will toward men."

Suddenly I heard a soft twinkling sound, and from his bag he pulled out a BELL,. "Teach the children that as the lost sheep are found by the sound of the bell, it should ring mankind to the fold. The bell symbolizes guidance and return.

Santa looked back and was pleased. He looked back at me and I saw that the twinkle was back in his eyes. He said, "Remember, teach the children the true meaning of Christmas and do not put me in the center, for I am but a humble servant of the One that is, and I bow down to worship him, our LORD, our GOD."