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Author: Riz
The Happy and Sad Parts of Christmas
Christmas 2021. I have a thing for Christmas. As a (Filipino) pastor’s kid, I grew up in an environment where Christmas is celebrated in a huge way. Christmas hymns blasted from our car stereo as soon as the “ber” months began; my Mom would wrap a bazillion presents for every cousin, every kid, and every family we know; all Sundays of December were booked months ahead with church festivities, multiple Christmas parties, family reunions, you name it. We had a schedule that would put Santa’s Google calendar to shame, not that we were taught to believe in Santa. And young Rhiza looked forward to all of it and thought Christmas was the best thing ever.
Everything drastically shifted when my Dad passed in 2006. As a young (ish) single woman, my heart was ripped apart, leaving behind a daddy-shaped hole that I tried to fill with stuff that never measured up. I have recollections of bittersweet Christmas gatherings, gazing longingly at an empty seat. And even as I was surrounded by an overwhelming love from friends and family, not to mention a mother who’s played both parental roles to the best of her abilities, there is no denying the sadness that simply.. hovered over everything.
I remember a particular Christmas where I slept my way through the entire holiday, thanks to an imported bottle of sleep aids from CVS. For the first time in my life I understood the melancholy of Christmas, why some of the most played Christmas songs are sad songs, why suicide rates are particularly high in what should be the most wonderful time of the year. The pressure to be festive is upon all of us, the internal struggle is real.
And yet again everything shifted when David, Dawn & Rain were added into my life.
A new purpose rekindled my Christmas spirits, to create new traditions and make the season magical for our daughters while I can, for as long as I can.
I found a new passion for wrapping up presents, listing down new Christmas movies to watch, adding new ornaments to the tree, finding new meaning to old Christmas songs. I started looking forward to Christmas mornings again, excited to hear Dawn and Rain’s squeals of delight when they open their gifts (“this is the best gift ever!,” says Rain, at every gift she opens), unicorns and pop-its, another shiny backpack, another box of stationery, more art supplies, new pairs of kicks.
This time around, Christmas is not only merry and bright, it is nuanced by loss and grief and a realization that the space our loved ones vacated in our lives will never be replaced by new people or new memories.
* * *
When I was younger I thought sadness cancelled happiness. What I didn’t understand then was how these polar concepts could co-exist.
I suppose that’s the kind of understanding gained only through time, and through pain.
When David’s Mama passed on this year, I thought I already knew how to navigate grief and to support him through it. Been there, done that, right? It took a minute to realize that grief is as fragile and as unique as a snowflake. No grief is ever the same, people cope differently, and when we add the mechanics of a global pandemic into the mix, we find that we have to learn to let go and to grieve in a new way too.
This Christmas we all fought the fight of being grateful for what we (still) have in the midst of longing for what was lost.
We learned, collectively, that grief comes in waves. One minute it feels like a heartache that crushes us from the inside, triggered by something as trivial as an empty seat, a Bible verse, his old necktie still hanging by an old closet, her favorite Christmas song.
And for a brief moment, we let the tears freely flow. We allow ourselves to remember the last Christmas we spent with them, the last present we gave and received, the last memory, the last photograph.
And if we’re given the space, we talk about them, we relive all the vivid details all over again like we haven’t before, and we laugh as we wipe the tears.
And then an overwhelming peace washes over us, and we acknowledge that the immeasurable pain we feel is proof that we loved.
There’s an old lesson to be learned here. A reminder to hold our loved ones tighter, literally if we could, and if we couldn’t, hold space for them in our hearts.
To love without conditions, even when it’s tempting to be angry, or bitter, or indifferent.
To be kind because everyone is fighting a tough battle.
To treasure each Christmas as if it’s the last.
* * *
This year has taught us that the things we thought couldn’t co-exist actually should. Sadness and happiness, absence and presence, grief and joy.
I don’t know who needs to hear this now but it’s okay to make space for both. Because the truth is, we cannot really, profoundly and fully, experience nor understand one without the other.
I wasn’t planning to write about grief when I started this post but I suppose it’s impossible to write about Christmas 2021 any other way.
We wish you and your family good tidings of comfort and joy this Christmas and the year ahead! Merry Christmas.
Photographs by Sheila Catilo.
Behind the Scenes of a Christmas Photograph
Christmas 2020. Behind the one family photo that makes the proverbial Christmas postcard are a dozen outtakes and stories.
This was us last year, Christmas 2020, at the height of the pandemic. We had been under lockdown for almost a year—and in the Philippines no less, the worst place in the whole world to be during a pandemic.
I remember that day feeling like not wanting to bother to take photographs because who has the energy to take photographs? And wasn’t that the story of 2020? Languishing, if I may, where everyone was stuck all year “doing nothing” and yet, there’s very little energy to go around.
We fought the urge to languish that day and, thank God, mustered enough strength to step out of our pajamas, take out the tripod, dust off the camera, and take a few shots.
Here we are a year later and I’m glad we took the time to memorialize the strangeness of that particular Christmas.
I want to remember as much of that day as I can—
Pushing bedroom furniture around so we can convert this corner into a makeshift studio.
The Christmas pine tree (and all of its ornaments and twinkle lights) that became a permanent fixture in that room all year.
The crooked teeth and cheeky smiles.
The midi-dresses that are now mini dresses.
The banter with the 8-year-olds.
The cuddles and tickles.
Today I look at these photographs from Christmas of 2020, grateful for everything they represent—
The grace to live another day, another year.
The bubble that kept us healthy, safe, and together.
The breath in our lungs, the hope in our hearts.
The blissful faith of a child, unfazed by what’s going on in the world.
The flickers of light in the midst of the dark.
The remembrance that no matter how bleak the year was with seemingly no end in sight, there is always, ALWAYS, something to smile and laugh about.
Read more ruminations about 2020
Counting the Days, and Making the Days Count
It’s the first day of November and day 231 of this lockdown.
Most of you probably stopped counting the days but, as someone who can count on one hand all the times she left the house in the past 8 months, I might as well just keep counting.
And so it has been 231 days figuring out this “new normal”. For our household, grocery runs are the only essential trips we accommodated in the entirety of this lockdown, and thankfully the only essential trips we need to take so far. And by “we” I mean mostly my husband. (Bless his heart!)
Mask up, face shield on, alcohol spray in one pocket, and cashless payment on standby so that the cashier doesn’t need to return change; and once back home, groceries to go through an elaborate disinfection process, and grocery runner to head straight to the bathroom to wash any hint of the virus away.
As trivial as grocery shopping used to be, we know that this fairly normal activity is not going back to the way it was, at least for the foreseeable future.
Just like most things in the world.
Needless to say, I am also totally conscious of the fact that my family and I have never been *physically* stuck in one place for this long.
Just like most of you.
As some parts of the world started opening up and loosening some restrictions, the Covid situation where we are have not really progressed, hence our decision to stay sheltered in place. Where we are, children below 15 are still not allowed to go out of the house. There really isn’t much of a choice.
That said, I do acknowledge our unique privilege—to have the kind of work that can be done remotely, to have established homeschooling long before Covid happened, and to have the means to stay home.
I am fully aware that others don’t have the same privilege and my heart goes out to those who have to physically battle it out there, to be in the frontlines of this pandemic, to commute under these circumstances, or to shift to distance learning in the middle of the school year, without much of a choice.
I want to acknowledge this privilege before I start writing about chasing dreams again (or whatever it is I’m prompted to publish on this space).
I don’t want to come out of my virtual cave and resume regular programming as if nothing happened; as if the bandaid has not been ripped off, lives are not lost, and the world is not wounded and hurting.
How does one chase dreams in this new normal anyway, and in the midst of anxiety and uncertainty?
How do we inspire others to keep going, to not give up on their dreams?
And how do we do this whilst being mindful of the reality that people out there are fighting battles that are unimaginable, risking their lives for others, navigating through grief and loss, and/or barely surviving to even think about dream-chasing?
Whilst I have all of these questions, it brings me a sense of comfort to know that I don’t need to have the answers. For the first time in all my years being on the internet, I don’t feel the need to apologise for turning off social media, leaving some messages unread, or ruthlessly curating my social feeds to block unnecessary noise.
In the same way, when I feel prompted to reach out or to speak up, I also don’t hesitate to send that random “Hello, how are you?“, or to retweet a Joe Biden ad or two (or okay maybe more).
2020 has been everything we didn’t ask for nor expect (and more!) and I am one to appreciate the collective understanding and the unspoken permission we have granted each other:
That we’re allowed to cope in ways we’re comfortable with and are necessary to get through this year.
Whether that means tuning out the noise so we can focus internally, loving on our families, and quietly making an impact in our smaller circles of influence—our children, the people we work with and do life with, the communities we support. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, turning to social media to connect, to lobby, to advocate, to make our voice heard. Whatever makes sense in the given moment.
I hope wherever you are today you are choosing to see 2020 for all the good that came out (and can come out) of it instead of dwelling on all the terrible things it exposed.
I hope that you’re taking steps towards healing, whatever healing means for you, one brave step at a time.
I hope that more than just counting the days, you are making each day—each moment, each social media post, each conversation, your vote, your voice—count.
And when all of this is over, I hope we will collectively remember 2020 as the year that God turned things around for the better and made us stronger, kinder, braver.
In the meantime, while many things are beyond our control, I hope you’re making the few ones still within your control, count.
It’s been a while. Thank you for sticking around.
Love,
RizWrapping up the Past Decade in a Bow
A tad too late to the decade-ender party but as always taking my time to process it all—the decade that has passed, the new one that has just begun. I started writing this post in December, only to write up the last paragraph while in quarantine. Ha! I’ll save the quarantine thoughts for another post, this one is dedicated to the decade that was.
If you told me at the end of 2009 that I’ve already met the man I was going to marry and that he and I would be raising twin daughters 3 years later, I would have laughed (or ugly cried) in disbelief. I was 26 years old, moving on from a bad breakup, unhappy with my job, ending an apartment lease and not knowing yet where to move next, basically crying myself to sleep at night and wallowing in self-pity.
2009 was not exactly the best of years for me, and let me just add that it was also the year I contracted H1N1. Needless to say, I could not wait for 2009 to be over.
And so when 2010 began, it felt like God forced a restart button in my life.
I wish I could say I let Him freely do it. The truth is, I fought hard, resisted, complained, refused to let go, and drove myself to a dead end and right through the cliff. But because it felt like it couldn’t really get any worse than that, there was also no way to go but up.
Fast forward to a decade later, the start of 2020, I honestly couldn’t have predicted that this is the life God was setting me up for.
I still sometimes stare at my sleeping daughters, weirded out that they’re mine. And I still often catch myself staring at David with a dorky smile on my face, remembering that he’s the same 17-year-old boy who sang me love songs and wrote me love letters from thousands of miles away and yes, he’s your husband, silly, for 8 years now.
As much as I’d like to avoid making this a rehash of our love story, it’s just impossible to ponder upon the past 10 years apart from David. After all, 2010 was when it all began—the one-way ticket, the saying of I do’s, the union of two lives. Our calendars and closet spaces and wallets and dreams have been tightly intertwined since.
Somehow between the years 2010 to 2019, David and I became husband and wife, life partners, business partners, parents to twin daughters, homeschoolers, him a Registered Nurse, me a mother.
And somehow in those years, said twin daughters grew, crawled, started walking, started talking non-stop, started homeschooling, turned 7 years old, and last time I checked, started losing baby teeth.
But as with any significant and meaningful growth, we had to go through seemingly endless stretching, and pruning, and wrestling with God, and getting back up on our feet, and healing, and moving forward. Rinse, repeat.
The decade is marked with itineraries that didn’t materialize, calendars that kept changing, bucket lists left unchecked, empty suitcases stored at the back of the closet indefinitely. There was a lot of dreaming and letting go of those dreams. A lot of waiting and working hard for a YES but getting a NO instead.
In retrospect, all of this growth is not possible without having to let go of old dreams to make room for new ones, and without letting God close doors so we can step into new ones — and only the best ones.
For me, 2010 felt like a hard restart. And now, 2020 feels just like it.. but on steroids.
Seriously though, 2020 is something else huh?? This pandemic, this lockdown, the natural (and man-made!) calamities striking the world at all sides, there’s really no knowing how this new decade is going to play out and how to navigate it.
All I know is, a decade from now the twins will be 18, and David & I will have more white hairs and wrinkles, hopefully still strong enough (and feeling young enough) to keep chasing dreams, and maybe living some of those old dreams.
And God! God will still be good, and He will still be God. And for all the things I don’t know about this new decade, the certainty of His goodness is good enough for me.
Take that, 2020.
Thank you, Jamie, for these photographs.
How I Want to Remember this Christmas
Christmas 2019.
“Best Christmas ever!”, says my daughter mid-jump, eyes twinkling bright like the northern star.
I may have said something like “woohoo!” but deep inside I tried to recall past Christmasses and, taking my daughter’s declaration too seriously, secretly doubted that #Christmas2019 was our best one.
The other day my husband and I were talking about the ordinariness of this Christmas. It’s really not that bad, to be honest. It’s just mostly uneventful and maybe even forgettable.
Sure there were pancakes in the morning, Christmas carols on loop all day, late-night Christmas movies. But some Christmas traditions were amiss, no out-of-town holidays, no advent calendar, no homecooked meals, not a lot of Christmas shopping or partying. Most of this was because I had to work through the Christmas break, which means I was pretty much holed up in front of my laptop, with little energy left for merry-making when the work hours were over. (Shout out to David and my Mom for holding the ~Christmas~ fort when I couldn’t.)
As a mother who wants to create memorable Christmasses for her kids while they’re still young, I have to admit I worried a lot about not being able to give them something worth remembering this year.
Then again, this is why “grownups” don’t always know better, and why it sometimes feels like children know something we don’t. In retrospect, there’s a reason why the Messiah came in the form of an unassuming child, in a stable, on an ordinary day.
We tend to think we need to offer Him myrrh, frankincense, and gold because that’s what the wise men did. In the same way, we focus too much on splurging on expensive gifts and planning the best holiday trips, thinking that these are the stuff that “the best Christmas ever” is made of.
I learn it doesn’t really take so much to make Christmas memorable for the kids—just some extended cuddle times, a new pair of fluffy slippers, a stack of pancakes, Christmas carols all day, store-bought cookies, our presence, our love, our time.
And this is exactly how I want to remember Christmas this year.
That somehow, for all its ordinariness and for everything it seems to lack, my daughters still think it’s “the best Christmas ever.”
What a humbling experience, to receive this kind of grace that children are capable of giving so generously and effortlessly. And, ultimately, to receive this amazing grace of a good, good Father who simply loves us for all our ordinariness. Every day of the year.
Thank you Jamie, for these beautiful keepsakes to remember this Christmas by. We love and will forever cherish every single one of them!
Family lifestyle photography by Jamie Mapagu.
The Christmas Animated Movie You Won’t Mind Watching All Year-Round
Heads up: It’s on Netflix. It’s always been on Netflix, somewhere, underneath piles of shows trying to capture your attention this Christmas season. I highly recommend you look up The Star.
The Star
Animated Film, 2017
In case you don’t know, “The Star” is an animated movie inspired by the birth of Jesus, as told by a donkey named Bo.
It was released in 2017, apparently underrated, and apparently with a star-studded soundtrack, including a Mariah Carey original which, by the way, the world needs to hear on repeat right now.
I’ve never heard of The Star until last summer when I was routinely browsing Netflix to add shows to Dawn & Rain’s watch list. (Mostly filtering out shows we don’t want them to watch.)
I was just going to scan through it, to be honest, but something about the first 5 minutes that got hooked quite easily. I ended up watching the entire film, laughing and wiping tears and totally falling in love with the characters. Granted I’m a cryer and I may be a tad too easy to please, I was still surprised at how much the story moved me and spoke to me in a deeply personal way.
I appreciate that it does not stray away from the biblical story of Jesus’ birth, even as they’ve modernized the dialogues to make it more relatable, and even as it centers the plot around a fictional donkey and his animal friends.
More so, I’m glad The Star is not part of a seasonal setlist that disappears after Christmas. In fact, the twins and I have watched this movie multiple times throughout the year, and every time we do, I still find myself bawling my eyes out.
Have you seen The Star yet?
If you haven’t, go watch it and come back here when you’re done.
Because I want us to talk about Bo the Donkey, and how he lets go of his dreams to follow the still small voice in his heart, and how he ends up doing something that’s even bigger than his biggest dreams!
I want us to talk about Mary and Joseph, and how the film aptly depicts their relationship with each other and with God, their hesitations, their humanity, their honesty, and their courage to obey anyway even when it doesn’t make sense.
I want us to talk about all the little side stories, of Ruth the Sheep going against the flock; and Dave the Dove being the absolute sidekick; the trio of camels and their hilarious banter; the animals’ collective effort to save Mary; the villain dogs who are given a chance to be set free.
There are many bits and pieces of the story that I love talking about with my kids, while also pondering upon timely (and adult-friendly) insights for myself.
Can you guess which parts of the story have me bawling? :)
As “Oh Holy Night” plays softly in the background, Bo realizes that the baby he helped save is Jesus, and it dawns on him that his dreams (of carrying a king on his back and being part of something important) have come true after all.
Deborah, the wise camel, voices over and wraps up the Christmas story into a nice little bow.
“You know, I think people are going to remember this night. What happened here around this manger will be celebrated for thousands of years. Families will come together to exchange presents and sing carols, all to remember the grace of this moment that we are witnessing right now.”
The movie ends with a familiar snapshot of the manger scene, the north star (“The Star”) beaming brightly in the background, leaving you with a warmth in your heart you want to carry with you throughout the year.
So go ahead and gather the whole family, load up Netflix, type in “The Star” in the search box (because it won’t just show up in popular lists), and watch the Christmas story unfold in a whole new way.
Looking for more holiday movies to watch? Here’s my (annual) classic Christmas movie list!
10 Christmas Movies to
Inspire the Creative in YouRead Now
