May contain traces of... NUTS.

James came home last night with white flakes all over his suit. He looked at me in disbelief and then exclaimed, " Look out in the window, fast!!!! " Fearing that passers-by would notice the distressed state of my medussa-messy hair and crumpled Arsenal shirt still unchanged from the night before, I drew the curtain cautiously before sneaking a glimpse out into the street.

There they were. All over. In just a matter of seconds. Our whole street and all the things on it… covered in snow. Ignoring my hubby’s expectant look, I went back in the comfort of my previous position, snuggled in between the tv, settee and warm fireplace. I shrugged my shoulders. “…Hmmm yeeaaaah. Fuckin’ ‘ell… train delays tomorrow, ya reckon?” Not waiting for a reply, I let out a theatrical exasperated sigh. I decided, only me should know. I only hope that my icy reception has masked it. For I felt, in the split second when I peeped out, a weight of an avalanche on my chest. The way one feels when you encounter something that brings the wistful nostalgia with it.

Snow. Just like the snow, memories began piling up in heaps, ever so silently… Sporadic and patchy at first, but in an amazing swiftness, it covered the whole landscape of my thoughts. Everything in sight… just white. I stared intently at the telly which was mocking me with an episode of ‘A Place in the Sun’…but actually, my real self was busy wandering up in my mental attic, rummaging through random junks and albums of snapshots from my past. Those naïve times when I still marveled at the thought of snow, because it alluded to Christmas back home.

I remember the white/snow-speckled window glasses in almost every shop in Megamall, enticing us into Christmas sales and holiday shopping crazes as early as October. The snow-covered log house in the middle of Greenhills theatre where supposedly, that bronzed, or at best, mestizo Santa Claus reside… whose lap my nieces would sit on while they grimace a smile to please their parents eager to ‘catch the moment’ with their cams. How, one Christmas, my sister painstakingly, in a creative rush, dotted every branch of our Christmas tree with shredded Styrofoam and cotton for that fashionable ‘White Christmas’ look… because we couldn’t afford that expensive white tree at Shangrila mall. Or that record mom always played every friggin December day, “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas’ which at 200 decibels, only screams psychosis.

I smiled to myself at the biting irony. There’s no white trees… nor real white Christmases… not around here, not for me anyway. Even snow has lost it yuletide appeal… it was replaced by auto-cues of ‘grit’ and ‘traffic delays’. Here in England, all around me are stuff that should’ve been quintessence of this festive season… wintery chills, white snow, 20 ft pine tree and yes, even a mature holly shrub--- the real thing at last, and all just in my backyard. Hoo-sodding-ray! The twist is, those plastic counterparts back in Manila, even the cheapest sorts, evoked more fervent Christmas spirit than here.

But what is even more absurd is, I used to hate Christmas back in the P’s. The neuroses of it. The tackiness of it. The necessary evil of weaving in (never out) the Shoppesville tiange to be herded helplessly by blobs of sweat, foul aftershaves, and an armada of bloated plastic bags just so you can panic buy your Christmas prezzies… for what? So that my mum can drag me to the province, away from all my social clique, to some lousy Christmas family jamboree where I am forced to kiss hill-billy relatives from some far-flung farm and play the adorable grand daughter from Manila studying at Ateneo (Trust me, that is a stereotype in itself). If they can only hear my thoughts! *the horror* People’s proximity during Christmas was always nauseating for me. Well, what made it worse is the fact that even those non-relatives, whom I normally stay a safe distance from for my own sanity, would indulged themselves with that sickeningly obsessive month-long altruism just because we’re supposed to “Give Love on Christmas day”…everybody becomes your long-lost sibling all of a sudden (until the end of December, anyway).

All those Christmases I spent there, I always kept on secretly wishing I was just some place else, in some snow covered part of the globe, away from all these tawdriness and madness. But I what I didn’t realise is, good tidings are hard to come by when you’re miles away from your loved ones. I miss my lola, the grand Matriarch whom our family is desperate to please… I even miss her brutal honesty as she expertly grope and sort out the unopened prezzies--- which ones had more effort and love put into wrapping it and which ones looked like slap-dash accident--- effectively handing us the subtext of which grandchildren has been good or bad for that year. I still regret to this day not spending her last Christmas with her. I miss the rest of our family too, the comfort of knowing the punchlines to the inside jokes, the casualness and effortless conversations, the reassuring smiles and sincere thank you’s in spite of tacky gifts as a pair of socks or a hideous sweater. I miss the predictability of it all. The simple pleasures from the festive cheers…in a place where that 'it doesn't matter where we are so long as we’re together' is actually a warm fuzzy feeling inside and not just a tired cliche.

Last Christmas, James and I slept through it and pretended that it never happened. This year would probably be the same… no fuss, unperturbed… the highlight of which would probably be writing sappy Christmas cards to people who couldn't care less while listening to the Queen's speech--- far away from the chaotic Pinoy Christmases… like I always dreamed it should be. I guess my wish has finally come true. A Christmas I truly deserve.