Karoling Tayo!

Christmases Past

The light in a child’s eyes is all it takes to make Christmas a magical time of year. - Anonymous

The only thing that I love more than summer? More than halo-halo and banana-Q on a stick?

Christmas.

That wonderful time of year when you and the weather put a sweater on. 

When you can stick your nose in the air and smell puto bumbong at Misa de Gallo.  

When on the first cold December night, Christmas lights are lit. 

I remember my heart racing, looking at how the whole neighborhood was illuminated with lights that looked like a hedge of stars over the city. A forest of foil dangly things and paper chains and large crepe-paper balls adorned the streets. Paper lanterns on window fronts glowed with an inner fire.

Beautiful.

And I knew exactly what my friends and I would say after dinner was over, Karoling tayo! (Let's go caroling!) 

Some of us had already taken a strip of parchment paper and measured it across our musical instrument of choice - a plastic comb. You hummed across it to produce a shrill, harmonica-like tune while others bellowed the words, a few of them incorrectly. 

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him broom...

Ned was giving instructions, Let's go to the Anchetas first! 

Then the Araujos, Lebi piped in. 

We were in agreement. They always gave us ten centavos for our piddly singing, not the usual measly singko coin. 

We couldn't wait to finish our short round of caroling on Fountain Street to count our loot and afterward buy titina candy and marshmallows from Aling Deling's sari-sari store. 

Christmas was a charmed time in my neighborhood. It was in the air, long before it came with our resonant rendition invoking a reindeer whose image was foreign to us. 

All op da ader reindeers

Used to laugh and call him names

(Like Pinocchio).

It was a time of quivering expectancy when we sang to the stars so that even the moon could hear us and bells rang with Christmas joy.

Jingel bels!