Update: I won this contest and got 5 ride-all-you-can passes to Enchanted Kingdom as prize! Yey! :)
Christmas is arguably the most widely celebrated occasion in the world. In the Philippines where I live, Christmas is celebrated longer than usual. Everyone here is giddy and excited about Christmas. Some households even start putting up Christmas trees and lanterns as early as September (the start of the ber-months). Aside from its religious meanings, Christmas is definitely an occasion worth remembering and an experience worth telling about.
My most memorable Christmas experience happened 23 years ago when I was still a jolly, wide-eyed kid that had just turned three. I didn't remember anything during that precious moment. Childhood amnesia at work, I guess. Everything I'm going to share here was based on my mom's first hand account. Though I was unaware of everything at the time, my mom's tale and my visualization of the scenario makes it, for me, the most memorable Christmas experience ever. Here it is:
My dad was working overseas then, in a faraway land of the Arabs called Kuwait. The year was 1986. I was the only child of my parents yet. It was just my mom, my grandparents and I at home. Everything was okay in the first few months that dad was away. Mom and I managed to live comfortably and happily.
The only mode of communication we had with my dad was snail mail. Oftentimes, the letter would take quite a long time to arrive and get received. During the second quarter of 1986, things started to become unstable in Kuwait. Apparently, there was tension building up between Iraq and Iran, two of Kuwait's neighbor countries. This would later evolve into something serious and catastrophic, with history referring to it as the Iraq-Iran War or First Persian Gulf War. According to mom, Iraq tried to get financial and military support from Kuwait and when the nation state declined the request, Iraq became upset and let Kuwait felt it through a series of bomb explosions that killed a considerable number of people. It even came to a point when Iraq invaded Kuwait (around 1990) temporarily due to economic reasons.
The sad news reached us and mom got worried about dad. Communication was poor then and so we had to content ourselves with the updates on TV. My mom and I tried to live a normal life despite the safety concerns we had for dad. Soon Christmas was just around the corner and mom got busy attending church fellowships and hosting prayer meetings in our house. Unknown to my young mind, she was praying hard for dad's safety. She wanted my dad home on Christmas even with empty pockets, and she was desperately asking God for it.
Then came Christmas eve. My mom, my grandparents and I celebrated Christmas silently through a simple but filling Noche Buena. The next day (Christmas Day) I woke up to a fully-stuffed Christmas sock hanging in our bedroom window. The three year old me got ecstatic. Santa left me presents as promised by my mom, or did he?
I looked for my mom and found her talking cheerfully with a man in the living room. The man's back was facing me I couldn't see his face. My mom saw me going hurriedly towards them. She called out my name and the man looked my way---it was dad! He got home exactly on Christmas Day, just as what mom wished for! A miracle, a lot of people said. It was difficult to get in and out of Kuwait during that time. It indeed was a miracle.
Dad did not waste time. He hugged and kissed me. Mom said the 'Daddy's girl' me was crying and the sight of me in tears sent her tear ducts to overdrive as well. Perhaps, the young me somehow understood the situation and the fact that my dad was able to go home on Christmas to be with us, for good.
I would learn later that my dad got assistance from good Samaritans in Kuwait who provided him and a number of his fellow Pinoy OCWs with the needed resources to be able to go back to the Philippines.
Dad was thoughtful enough to buy presents for me which included a barbie doll and boxes of chocolates. As for mom, he got her a gold necklace and bottles of perfumes. As for money, he just had enough for us to survive the next year. The material things were really just a bonus, what mattered most was that dad had gone back to us safe and alive. And that it made our Christmas in 1986 a truly merry occasion and a special reunion of sorts. :)
This is my entry to the What’s your Christmas Story Contest by Enchanted Kingdom.
If you liked this post and would be interested to get updated with The Life of a Breadwinner, bookmark this site or subscribe to my feeds.
My most memorable Christmas experience happened 23 years ago when I was still a jolly, wide-eyed kid that had just turned three. I didn't remember anything during that precious moment. Childhood amnesia at work, I guess. Everything I'm going to share here was based on my mom's first hand account. Though I was unaware of everything at the time, my mom's tale and my visualization of the scenario makes it, for me, the most memorable Christmas experience ever. Here it is:
My dad was working overseas then, in a faraway land of the Arabs called Kuwait. The year was 1986. I was the only child of my parents yet. It was just my mom, my grandparents and I at home. Everything was okay in the first few months that dad was away. Mom and I managed to live comfortably and happily.
The only mode of communication we had with my dad was snail mail. Oftentimes, the letter would take quite a long time to arrive and get received. During the second quarter of 1986, things started to become unstable in Kuwait. Apparently, there was tension building up between Iraq and Iran, two of Kuwait's neighbor countries. This would later evolve into something serious and catastrophic, with history referring to it as the Iraq-Iran War or First Persian Gulf War. According to mom, Iraq tried to get financial and military support from Kuwait and when the nation state declined the request, Iraq became upset and let Kuwait felt it through a series of bomb explosions that killed a considerable number of people. It even came to a point when Iraq invaded Kuwait (around 1990) temporarily due to economic reasons.
The sad news reached us and mom got worried about dad. Communication was poor then and so we had to content ourselves with the updates on TV. My mom and I tried to live a normal life despite the safety concerns we had for dad. Soon Christmas was just around the corner and mom got busy attending church fellowships and hosting prayer meetings in our house. Unknown to my young mind, she was praying hard for dad's safety. She wanted my dad home on Christmas even with empty pockets, and she was desperately asking God for it.
Then came Christmas eve. My mom, my grandparents and I celebrated Christmas silently through a simple but filling Noche Buena. The next day (Christmas Day) I woke up to a fully-stuffed Christmas sock hanging in our bedroom window. The three year old me got ecstatic. Santa left me presents as promised by my mom, or did he?
I looked for my mom and found her talking cheerfully with a man in the living room. The man's back was facing me I couldn't see his face. My mom saw me going hurriedly towards them. She called out my name and the man looked my way---it was dad! He got home exactly on Christmas Day, just as what mom wished for! A miracle, a lot of people said. It was difficult to get in and out of Kuwait during that time. It indeed was a miracle.
Dad did not waste time. He hugged and kissed me. Mom said the 'Daddy's girl' me was crying and the sight of me in tears sent her tear ducts to overdrive as well. Perhaps, the young me somehow understood the situation and the fact that my dad was able to go home on Christmas to be with us, for good.
I would learn later that my dad got assistance from good Samaritans in Kuwait who provided him and a number of his fellow Pinoy OCWs with the needed resources to be able to go back to the Philippines.
Dad was thoughtful enough to buy presents for me which included a barbie doll and boxes of chocolates. As for mom, he got her a gold necklace and bottles of perfumes. As for money, he just had enough for us to survive the next year. The material things were really just a bonus, what mattered most was that dad had gone back to us safe and alive. And that it made our Christmas in 1986 a truly merry occasion and a special reunion of sorts. :)
me with dad on his 53rd birthday, taken 23 years after I experienced
my most memorable Christmas on earth
my most memorable Christmas on earth
This is my entry to the What’s your Christmas Story Contest by Enchanted Kingdom.
If you liked this post and would be interested to get updated with The Life of a Breadwinner, bookmark this site or subscribe to my feeds.
Get the latest updates on the Life of a Breadwinner by subscribing to my RSS feeds. This entry was posted
on 11 December 2009
at Friday, December 11, 2009
and is filed under
Best Christmas,
Christmas 1986,
Christmas Adventures,
Christmas Stories,
Christmas Tales,
Christmases,
Merry Christmas Experience
.
