Weekends with Archie

My First Christmas Away From Home

December 30, 2006

It was eleven-thirty on my watch when the Christmas mass in Gesu ended.  People were dressed at their best with faces all smiling and eyes brightly shining like the lights at the Bel Field.  They were walking around with their families and friends.  The air was filled with greetings and laughers accompanied by the music of church bells.  Truly, it was a picture of happy reunions and celebrations for everyone, but not really for me.  How perfect the night could have been if only my mother, my father and my brother were just right beside me…

You may ask then why I am away from home this Christmas, of all the times that I should not go home, why Christmas?  I hope I can easily answer the question for the means of solving the problem do not lie on my hands, nor on my parents' hands, nor in our pockets. Spending for my round trip plane ticket is almost the same as spending almost a thousand per day of my vacation at home.  The whole year brought us tremendous financial crisis which gave way to the sacrifice my family and I must endure this season.  Not being with them during Christmas is definitely unimaginable for me!  But I think we all come to a point in our lives when families have to humbly celebrate Christmas in the same way that the Blessed Family spent their very first celebration.

The following is my Christmas message I sent for my family in Davao:

 
To celebrate Christmas nevertheless in my own way, I found myself thirty minutes after in the middle of the well-lighted yet empty Eastwood City, and together with a fellow dormmate who also spent the season away from home, I ate my Noche Buena in
CheeseCake Etc, the only restaurant who, despite of the holiday, displayed the sign, "We're open!"

 

Dear God, I offer to you our sacrifices as one family in the hope of a better and a more
meaningful life with you.  Dear Jesus, happy birthday and despite all the hardship in life, I know that everything shall be well for me and for my family simply because you came to live with us. To you Oh Lord, I offer my sincerest "Merry Christmas!"


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