Gift Giving

"Merry Christmas!" We greeted our lola and aunt and everyone else at my uncle's home in Pampanga.

This was one of the few times I have joined them for Christmas ever since I worked for a Clinical BPO because usually I can't join them. I'd rather sleep after shift on Christmas Day.

It was a joyous event. Everyone's spirits were high and positive. It couldn't be better.

I think it had always been like this for us. Christmas will always be marked with a fuzzy feeling of warmth and comfort, and also a sense of peace.

As a kid, I had always enjoyed Christmas. I mean who wouldn't?

Aside from seeing your cousins and having a great time with them, you'd also collect, um, I mean, receive gifts of all sorts from your aunts and uncles.

Zoids.

Megazord.

Gundam.

Remote-controlled car.

Cash.

That special moment where you space out and unwrap your gift or open that Ang Pow. There's magic there. You're so engrossed that you forget you're celebrating something far more special than your gifts.

But of course, as a tito now, that tradition has died down...

I barely receive gifts from aunts and uncles anymore. I don't mind it. That's the reality of growing up. That tradition of gift-giving has been passed down to the next generation. Me and my cousins had done it before. It's now time for the younger ones to experience that feeling of opening up a present.

I like it.

When I see them opening up my gifts for them, seeing them light up their faces, smiling from ear to ear - it still gives me that warm feeling all over.

Kind of the ones I used to experience when I was a kid.

That feeling of pure and simple happiness.

So yeah, I may not be a kid anymore, but this tito will still hold that tradition of giving gifts to nieces and nephews.

That is, until they're already working.