NOCHE BUENA MANO

It's past 2 PM on Christmas Day, and everybody just got out of bed.

This may seem strange for some Westerners, but in the Philippines and in most Latin countries, Christmas festivities begin on the night before Christmas. In fact, Christmas Eve was one of those rare occasions when we were allowed to stay up late when we were kids, and we took full advantage, running around the house with our cousins, finally keeling over way into Christmas morning. This, of course, meant we were asleep for the most of Christmas Day, but we’d end up waking in the afternoon and returning to the holiday table for some delicious leftovers.

Many years later and many miles away, nothing much has changed. Remnants of last night's noche buena still inhabit our holiday table: my turbo roast chicken's not-so-neatly picked carcass, some Chinese take-out from Kuya Sever's place of work, a sprinkling of chicken and tuna salad filled croissants (courtesy of our local deli), and a lonely apple pie, still untouched in its foil pan. Reigning supreme over the holiday table, my baked ham with all the fixin's: scalloped potatoes, confetti corn medley and green bean casserole.

I opted for ham over turkey this year. Ham is nice and straightforward. It makes for a nice and festive main course straight out of the oven, and is great for sandwiches days after. When the meat is finally picked cleanly off the bone, you can still make a decent Split Pea and Ham Bone Soup as a fitting last hurrah.

And then there are the SERENO STAPLES, always requested for family get-togethers: Ate Baby's Pancit Palabok, Sel's Binagoongang Baboy, Anna's Original Ilocano Sinanglaw, and my Chicken Enchiladas and Leche Flan. Unfortunately, only two of these favorites made it to the ranks this year. Ate Baby's Palabok is missing in action because Kuya Simon celebrated Christmas with his in-laws in San Diego, and Ate Maricel brought a corned beef brisket instead of the usual Binagoongan. I couldn't make my Leche Flan because Lorenzo forgot my mold at work when he brought this year's only holiday flan to his boss. I ended up improvising for dessert, adding a Thomas the Tank Engine cake topper to a standard snowman cake to the kids' delight. I called my creation Thomas' Winter Wonderland. It was a big success. Troy wouldn't let the cake out of his sight.

Today the cake looks forlorn, devoid of its décor. Numerous pockmarks bear testament to Troy’s poking fingers. Just as I thought, the kids lost interest as soon as Thomas was out of the picture.

I whip up a new batch of enchiladas when I spot a newcomer to the table. It seems my next-door neighbor, Marta, sent some of her tamales over. I look around for something to offer her in return. I pass up on the enchiladas, since Marta is Mexican. Luckily, Anna's leftover sinanglaw is bubbling merrily on the stove. I ladle out a generous portion and give it to Marta’s daughters, telling them it’s the Filipino version of menudo. (While menudo in the Philippines is a meat dish made up of beef or pork and liver, Menudo in Mexico is tripe soup.)

My living room is still strewn with bits and pieces of gift-wrap. Every year, it is a Sereno family tradition to collect all the presents and lay them in one huge pile. At the stroke of midnight, a designated uncle would put on the Santa Hat (last night, it was reindeer horns, since the Santa Hat stayed in San Jose), take over the karaoke mic, and pick out a present from the pile, announcing the giver and receiver. This would go on until all the presents were gone or until Santa was hoarse trying to yell above the din, after which designated elves (aka nephews and nieces) were dispatched to do the delivering.

Lance and Troy are dancing with excitement. As in Christmases past, they were allowed to open their presents from the family on Christmas Eve, but Mommy and Daddy’s presents were off limits until Christmas Day and the days after. We only let them open one present a day. This way, they get to play with their new toy the whole day without getting distracted by other, more interesting gifts. I find that they appreciate things more this way.

Last night, they got a preview of what to expect from this year’s batch of goodies when they opened Uncle Simon’s presents: a Thomas the Tank Engine video and a wooden train for each of them. These eclipsed all the other presents in the lot, and effectively ended the party hours after, when they insisted on turning off the karaoke system so that they could watch their Thomas videos. Today, we decided to prolong their viewing pleasure by handing them their first present from Mom and Dad, a Thomas DVD for each. Hopefully, they don’t see through our simple strategy: have them watch Thomas all day so that Mommy and Daddy can catch up on their rest!

One of the first Christmas tree ornaments I bought this year was a Thomas the Tank Engine ornament. This is because I will always remember 2003 as a Thomas the Tank Engine year for my boys. Their love affair with Thomas started when my mother visited us from New York last June. We took her to the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento, where they had an ongoing event called Thomas’ Day Out. Lance and Troy got to ride on Thomas and shake hands with Sir Topham Hat. When we got home, I borrowed all the Thomas videos I could find from the library and the love affair began. Now they have almost all of Thomas’ DVDs, a growing collection of Thomas books, and of course, the trains themselves. Lance and Troy wore Thomas outfits for Troy’s 2nd birthday party, and Troy even wore a Thomas the Tank Engine costume, complete with engineer’s hat, for Halloween.

I glance at the pile of presents still unopened. I recognize the contents by their shapes: some Thomas books, two Take Along Thomas sets (complete with railroad, fences, trees, horses and a clock tower), and six battery-operated trains: Thomas, Henry and Toby for Troy, and Percy, Gordon and James for Lance. Of course, there are other, non-Thomas presents as well, but these were relegated to the bottom of the pile.

Lorenzo and I manage to catch a few precious moments alone, while the first DVD, Troy’s “Cranky Bugs and Other Tales” played. Soon the kids would be bugging us again, asking us to replace the disc with Lance’s new DVD. Whenever they felt like taking a break, they would retire to their new spring horse, courtesy of Auntie Sel. This spring horse was like no other when we saw it at Toys R’ Us: it was huge, hand painted, and definitely heirloom material. It had a nice price tag too: almost $150 after taxes, but thanks to a generous ninang, it was now noisily broadcasting stampede noises all over our home.

We hear a commotion. The familiar voices of our kids squabbling. Soon, Lance runs to us with a partially opened present: “Mooooommm, look what Troy did!!!” It was the Thomas books. Troy follows with a guilty look. Lorenzo and I give up on our sleep, which we now realize is an exercise in futility. Instead, we return to our holiday table and fix ourselves ham sandwiches. Soon the kids would tire of their viewing and request that we read their new books to them. Hopefully, our imaginative reading would somehow lull them to sleep. Then we could tuck them into bed and plug our karaoke mic into the TV.

Who says kids have all the fun?