It is during Christmastime that I remember her most because she plays the organ for the church choir. I remember this clearly for she always tag me along during practice and during the mass that I memorized all the hymns, especially the Latin ones sung during the misa de gallo. Again, my favorite is Pastores a Belen, sung in Spanish.
But more than that, I also remember with longing how she made our home happy especially on Christmas. She would tirelessly bake cakes, ( my favorite is the angel food cake); cook the hanging dried leg of Chinese ham that boils for hours and finishes it with sprinkled brown sugar and caramelize the top by pressing a blazing-hot steel butcher knife or steel ladle or turner on top. I believe there was no torch then or maybe we just didn't have one. I also love her baked chicken-macaroni-Chinese sausage-tomato dish that tasted like heaven. And her fruit salad is to die for! She mixes raw egg yolks with nestle cream and some sugar to cans and cans of peaches and fruit cocktail.
And that's not all, there were all the fruits: grapes, oranges and apples but the roasted chestnuts is my favorite. Since my Papa love that so much as well, she buys a lot; I remember gallons of chestnuts in reusable magnolia ice cream aluminum cans. But the best is always served last, the big slab of torrones that she sliced into one-inch chunks that we had for desert and downed with muscatel.
We always had guests, even though we lived in my Papa's hometown, while my Mama came from Calixto Dico in Manila, still she made lots of friends, young and old, single and married. They always come to our parties, and they had lots of fun, laughing and dancing till dawn. She keeps the table filled with food and kept pouring drinks.
But, let's go back to my Mama.
Her passion is not really cooking, though she is excellent in that department, she loves reading. When I was little, she subscribed to almost all the monthly women's magazine: Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Companion, Cosmopolitan, Harper's bazaar, House And Garden while my Papa had the Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post and Popular Mechanics. Then there were also the weekly local magazines, Women's, Kislap and two others I can't recall.
Receiving these magazines from the postman (there were no local editions in the 50's), was like getting candy for my Papa and Mama. The magazines are shipped and they came rolled in brown paper, and my papa would flatten it down by rolling it the opposite way.
These magazines were just "appetizers" for they also read a lot of novels, their main menu. I look back with sadness that they haven't lived today; I would have gotten them both an iPad and downloaded lots and lots of ebooks for them.
Later, when I was married, I would bring my Mama to the bookstore, aside from the restaurant where we went to eat, that's all she wanted to go at the mall. When I got my groceries, l left her at the bookstore to browse as long as she pleased.
One day, my nanny who had lots of friends in the village brought her to a neighbor's house with shelves and shelves of novels; she was so excited that when I got home from work she looked like she had just won the lottery:
"There are many shelves full of paperbacks and the owner said I can borrow as many and as long as I like, look what I got for a first batch", she told me showing about twenty books.
When Christmas comes around every year, I really regret that my parents haven't lived longer, they passed away too soon, they were just in their early 60's. It would have been my turn to prepare a sumptuous Christmas dinner for them. It would have made me very happy to buy them all the books and magazines both ebooks or paperbacks alike. Sad to say that I will never have that chance. But they are always in my heart every Christmas and everyday of my life.
"Merry Christmas Papa!, merry Christmas Mama!"
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