December 16, 2005

My final Christmas living at home

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire while Embracing the Family

By Jeffrey Lo
Times Columnist

The Christmas lights are hung, the trees that are Evergreen’s namesake are being chopped down and the cold is freezing my poor little toes. We all know what that means—we’re in the thick of the holiday season.

Yes, when my mom’s favorite radio stations, 96.5 KOIT and 94.5 KBAY, begin playing Christmas carols 24 hours a day, you know that special time of year has arrived. However, this Christmas is much different from my past Christmases.

This year’s festivities are extra special because it’s my last Christmas living at home. It’s my final hoorah before I’m forced to say, like in the movies, “I’m going home for Christmas.”

For the longest time I’ve been talking about how I’m itching to go to college and get high school over with, but here is one of the aspects of living at home that I don’t want to end. As much as I love Christmas and always await its arrival, I have found myself not wanting my final one to come just yet.

If you are shopping at a mall, check to see if you can spot a teenage Filipino boy standing and taking in the moment of being nearly tackled down by a mob of overzealous holiday shoppers. That Filipino boy will probably be me. Each push and shove from a frantic mother, probably trying to get the last American Eagle sweater in the store, will fill me up with more and more holiday spirit.

There are an infinite amount of things to miss about Christmas in the Lo house. The day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, is the day when my mom awakens the three Lo children at 6 a.m., fully armed with a purse and credit card.

Not all of them can survive the madness, but the tough few who can keep up with Mama Lo—I say keep up, for no one can out-shop super mom—will be showered with the gifts of their choice—as long as they are on sale, of course.

One year, in the Great Mall parking lot, we were in our car behind a guy and his girlfriend waiting for another family to pull out of a parking spot. The family was taking a long time to get out of their spot, so my mom decided to drive around the couple in front of us with the intention of merely passing them to find another open space.

The couple, two of the stressed holiday shoppers that will fill my heart with holiday spirit, thought we were trying to steal their parking spot and started to beep. We knew what we were trying to do, so we kept on going. The infuriated female of the couple—who after this fiasco I am convinced wore the pants of that relationship—ran out of the car and stood in front of the parking spot to prevent both the family from pulling out and us from doing what we had no intention of doing in the first place.

As the tiring day nears a close, it can’t end without decorating the house. My sisters and I have become masters at the art of decorating the little white and orange house on Whitesand Drive.

How could we not be masters at it? My artificial Christmas tree has been a part of my family as long as I have. I’m convinced that, to celebrate my birth, my parents went out and bought a Christmas tree. The handy dandy thing has become like a brother to me.

Along with the tree, we bring out the stockings and the little ornaments to replace the figurines that fill the house during the other 10 months of the year. My dad has an infatuation with dancing dolls, or action figures, as he would probably prefer to call them.

You know those scary looking fish that sing when you push a button? Yes, we have one of those “Billy the Bass” fish that sings “Bad to the Bone.” Let me tell you, those fish do not sing only when you push the button. They will sing at the top of their lungs as soon as they see innocent human prey minding their own business in the quiet.

Anyways, Billy the Bass, the Jazz Man and all of the other singing figurines move aside for Snowmen and Santa Claus dolls that, you guessed it, sing AND dance.

After the house is fully decorated into a red and green home reminiscent of the North Pole, we prepare the gifts. While the kids are at school, my mom will go to her room and wrap the presents.

She cleverly places only the presents that we know she bought us, because we picked them out ourselves, under the tree. She hides the rest of the presents in a top-secret hidden area of the house that is defended like the Sorcerer’s Stone. I have spent 17 years of my life trying to find the hidden presents and have failed every time.

As Christmas Eve rolls around, the Lo household is full of food. Even on the off years where we have no guests for Christmas, our house has enough food to feed at least 15. After our Christmas Eve feast, we watch TV and stare at the clock until it turns to midnight.

Of course we are never patient enough to wait till midnight, so around 10:45 p.m. we begin to open our presents. Once the children find that they have been graciously rewarded by Jolly ol’ Saint Nick they run up to their rooms with the spoils of being a good kid for 11 months, or at least for the weeks leading up to Christmas.

The following day we arrive at church for Christmas mass decked out in our new Christmas clothing, feeling happy.

Churches all around the world are always packed on Christmas Day. Families realize that they like going to church and make going to church one of their New Year’s resolutions. They usually stick to it until, oh let’s say … the Super Bowl.

Well there you have it my friends. I have relived my 17 years worth of Christmas memories with you. Check back with me on Dec. 26, I’m sure my 18th will be one to remember. Although it’s been said many times, many ways, Merry Christmas, my Evergreen neighbors, Merry Christmas.