Happy Birthday Mama Nene

Mama Nene’s birthday cake from Ate Rachel

Thank you Teng…cooked a little for her special day

even if she's no longer around. pasta and tacos

Happy Birthday Ma

sobrang miss da na ka

somehow it's Christmas

misa de gallo or dawn mass

our humble parol

this tree has seen [better days?]

let there be lights

[home after the dawn mass]

I think I always have mixed emotions about Christmas but all I know is...it isn’t my favorite Holiday…

There’s always something in me that makes me wish I’d feel the Merry in Merry Christmas. I will always missed Mama Nene, She would make halaya…and I, her reluctant kitchen assistant would peel and grate the ube yams. And she would cook it using charcoal on a terracotta stove. And boy! it gets heavy to stir as the yams gets thicker in consistency.

And then she would cook my favorite dish…hamunado, yum, leche flan…all of my favorites.

sigh. But we usually don’t eat during noche buena. She’d rather go to sleep, well, I think, she is too tired from all the Christmas brouhaha cooking. And I would go to Ate Rachel’s house and spend Christmas with her family, and I also miss that so much. The exchange gifts, the aginaldo, the eat all you can noche buena feast.

And yes, attending dawn mass/misa de gallo. This is where I miss my childhood friends.

We would try to complete the nine mornings, which they say for a wish, and whoever gets up first will wake the sleepyheads up. And then it’s been freezing cold to walk on the streets, even if we’re donned on warm sweaters along with our highfalutin spraynet bangs...if Justin Bieber was born on this era, i wonder what would he do with his, probably he would be an anti spraynet bangs. Well probably that helps, I guess spraynet is one factor of global warming which is why I can no longer feel the 'malamig ang simoy ng hangin/december breeze' when zadee and i headed to the church.

And then, somewhere in my memory, I had not practice the Filipino tradition eversince…

Maybe it’s the hectic sched of College life and growing up…and not being that religious, sorry Jesus. Yay

I guess my friends will be surprised and they will surely banter silly jokes on me like “magpamisa kayo, nagsimba si Anna Lee.” Oh me Oh my, I attended a dawn mass…with zadee. It’s so hard to wake her up. But that’s the only start of the struggle. I have to keep her up from being sleepy during the mass. And we just stood outside the church for better ventilation since it is already fully crowded inside.

Well, we’ve managed to stay until the homily but decided to leave when the priest started preaching about Politics. sorry po ulit.

I will not be able to complete the "nine mornings" but my Christmas wish is that we' d be able to survive this Christmas and this coming year.

undas

just came home from the cemetery, to try to see how to set up the tent during undas...

it was already crowded with people busy cleaning and painting "nichos' silently sat there

for a few minutes..."Mama, may bago ka ulit kasama sa katabing puntod, pa'no ba yan."

headed to the public market, afterwards, thinking that my mall-bought candles are not enough. I went with a bunch and with only just a few vagabond coins left in my purse...

no ulam...tocino for lunch (always a staple to the rescue)

of course, flowers for Mama

why is that during November the roses never bloom in the garden...