Family members gathered by the fireplace, each one wrapped in a blanket, drinking hot cocoa. Can you imagine it? It’s just like what you see in the movies. Anyways, back to reality. My family is nothing like that. First of all, we do not have a fireplace. Who needs it when you live in a hot city? Though we do have blankets, we do not use those during our celebration of the holiday. What we have is hot cocoa, a variety of food, and presents!

Each year, my family spends Christmas Eve at my grandparent’s house. We celebrate with my mom’s sisters and their own families. It is one of the only times we all get to catch up and bond with one another. We do that through our traditional family dinner and free time afterwards. Having a few hours left before Christmas day arrives, we try our best to stay up until midnight. To keep each other awake, the pianists play melodies, the singers carol, the children play, and the rest engage in jolly conversation.

When the clock strikes twelve, we all know what that means: it is time for our gift exchange! We call the drivers, guards, and household help to come join us in the living room. Then, the grandchildren pick out gifts from under the massive Christmas tree one by one and give them to whomever they are addressed to. As each one opens their gifts, smiles and laughs fill the room as people receive something special from whom they love.

Our celebrations, though not as extravagant, bring out the simplicity that Jesus and His family embodied on the day He was born. On Christmas Eve, we are not bothered by the lack of activity and noise because we are happy, as long as our family is together. We do not forget to give thanks for this opportunity to come together, despite our busy schedules, to be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas, keeping Jesus and family close.

To say that my family and I take Christmas lightly would be a massive lie. Not a year goes by that I don’t look forward to the sounds, the smells, and the tastes of the holiday season.

The morning of the 24th is absolute bliss; the calm before the storm. Christmas eve morning means pumpkin apple scented candles, jazz trio Christmas albums on repeat, chess games with dad, and of course, a busy kitchen in preparation for the Noche Buena.

The sunset is our cue to start getting ready to head to church. The Christmas midnight mass is always a big deal to us because we serve in our respective ministries. I, personally, always look forward to attending the mass because I sing in the choir (where I met some of my oldest and closest friends). I get chills hearing each Christmas song we get to sing, and I’m grateful that I get to be part of something so incredibly special. It’s always so much fun because it’s like getting to spend Christmas with my friends as well.

The mass ends just a few minutes before midnight, and we race back home so we get to open gifts on Christmas day—12 o’clock on the dot. Noche buena isn’t complete for us all without capping the night off with hot chocolate made from the family farm’s tablea de cacao—one of the tastes I can’t help but associate with the holidays.

We stay up as long as we can, in a seemingly endless spiral of conversation and cookies. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Every year, on the night before Christmas, a snow-bearded man in a red suit delivers “Christmas spirit” to children across the world--so the multi-generational tale goes. On that same Christmas Eve, my family drives over to my grandparents’ home to celebrate. As we eat dinner, the Christmas melody, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Michael Bublé, plays. However, what if you learned that the person seated next to you lives a double life? Moreover, what if you find out that Santa lives in the four-quartered room right next to yours, pays for your Shoppee orders, and listens to Olivia Rodrigo with you in the car? In my case, Santa turned out to be a tall, fair-skinned, brunette woman who can also be classified as my mother.

Before going to my grandparents’ house, my mom would “forget” her phone. She and our house staff would quickly eat the cookies, carrots, and asparagus I left for Santa and his reindeers. Then, they would grab my dad’s boots and slather mud onto the shoes’ soles and stomp them all over my living room. Next, they would sprinkle melted ice on the floor and make a pathway of hay to the present underneath the Christmas tree. My mom prepared a note written in big, bold letters addressed to me, all the way from the North Pole. Once all this was done, she got in the car. As a young child, I didn’t analyze her annual pattern of forgetting her phone in my house right before leaving for dinner. All that was in my head was, “I wonder when Santa will arrive.”

When I returned to my house from dinner, my mom always seemed thrilled to watch my reactions as I walked into my living room, seeing all the creativity she hid from me. The nostalgia I have for those childhood moments will never fade, and so won’t the Christmas magic that my mom silently gifted me in the form of a tradition she executed for twelve years. Endlessly she will be my “Mother Christmas.”