My husband and I came from a middle class family here in the Philippines. In our younger years, being middle class was equivalent to being well off nowadays. But as we were growing up, we began experiencing the changes in the economy thus the comfortable life back then started to lead us to live a life that thought us to be thankful with what we have and to refrain for asking for more.
It wasn't so sad though. Although there were some issues in life that took it's mark on me. I am not complaining as well, as we were raised and taught to be contented with what we have.
How did the Christmas tree came up as a challenge to me? As far as I can remember, when we transferred to Manila from Zamboanga City, it was me and my younger sister who decorated for Christmas. My mom would buy ornaments and stuff but it was always us who would put it where it should be. We had our own Christmas tree, I can't remember how we got it but we had a shy 4 or 5 feet high tree. In the beginning, I found it to be big but as we grew, it became smaller, and as the years passed, it began to wear off. And since there were more important things to attend to and spend for, we contented ourselves with what we have.
Time came when me and my sister had our own jobs, we decided to buy a new tree for our family. Yahoo! But it didn't took long when the majority of our family decided to relocate and go back to our hometown. The transfer brought along the tree that we bought. Since majority are transferring and it would only be me and the youngest brother who will be left in Manila, it's just rational that they have the tree.
For me Christmas is important, for the many reasons of it, it is important, from the aesthetic to the true meaning...this was I believe the reason why it left a mark on me.
Since then, I promised myself, once I have a family of my own, I will invest on a tree. Good enough, the man who is now my husband has his own share of Christmas tree "need" that when we were still dating, we already pledged to buy "our" own Christmas tree. Though we weren't able to buy the tree on our first Christmas together, we bought it on our second year, a few months after our son was born.
I clearly remember going to Divisoria, late in the afternoon bringing along our 9 month old son with us just to purchase our tree. And because this was a fulfillment of our dreams, we bought an enormous 8 feet tall Christmas tree at around $82 back in 2007. To this day, whenever we bring it out to prepare it for decoration, we always have this smile on our face. A smile that shows how proud we are of one of our few "treasured properties"
Decorating the tree will always be a work in progress and calls for another story though :) Merry Christmas!
