smelling the food of christmas

it's the 24th of december and i have just come from the last and ninth day of the simbang gabi. yes!!! i did it... i completed the nine-day novena masses after not having gone to simbang gabi for the past twelve years. that's as long as i have been married to my husband. please don't ask me why but you can do the math.

it is the day before christmas and i can smell the food of christmas. it has been a theme christmas eve dinner for the past five or so years now. this year, it will be dimsum! with crab and corn soup, peking duck, noodles, buchi, almond gulaman and lychees. mmmmm.....

it's been quite a hectic two months or so approaching christmas. i am constantly thrown into the pressures of work at the hospital as well as home concerns and responsibilities with children just as i am all year round. and this time of the year is going unbelievably haywire with the must-go social events, gift-hunting and gift-giving. of all years, i can say that the days this time of the year have been one humongous blur because of the schedule clutter which has prevented me from feeling and enjoying as i should, the christmas that should be in the air.....

except during simbang gabi..... my saving grace. yes, thanks to this, it has made me feel christmas-y especially in the mornings. every 4 am, i would get up and wake up my mom, get dressed and drive with her to church. the homilies were especially good. there were many wonderful reflections from the bishops and priests. after mass, mom and i would sit around the breakfast table and chat endlessly about various things. that was extremely good. i didn't realize how much i missed that. the past nine days allowed me to bond with my mom, who started me in this tradition as a child. the past nine days prepared me spiritually for what is to come tomorrow.

indeed, i can smell, see, feel, almost touch and taste, the food of christmas. not the dimsum nor the duck. but real food, which is jesus christ, our savior. his birth reminds me of god's original blessing when he created us and the beautiful world around us. his birth reminds me of god's perfect love and our responsibility to love the same. his birth reminds me of god's powerful presence in our lives as he constantly guides, challenges and rewards us. he is the the one and only food that could sustain us, and fill us more than enough so we have some more of him and his love to share and sustain others.

may his joyous birth remind you of the same.