Gifts for Christmas and ...New Year.

What to give? There is that question again. Every year, about the same time today, I think of possible answers to this one question.

In our family, I remember that gift giving usually was done on New Year's Day, not Christmas Day.

How did this happen? Well, when I was growing up, we spent our Christmases with my grandparents in our province up North in Nueva Ecija. So it meant that, we kids, received gifts, but we never gave any. It was more receiving.

After Christmas, we would head back to Manila, and on New Year's Day, we would be at the house of our maternal grand aunt (this was way back when I was in primary school), and together with my siblings and countless second cousins, we would again be receiving gifts, this time, from my mother's relatives - her sisters and numerous cousins. So, when it was time to go home after a long day of eating, talking and playing, we would be carrying bags full of gifts, and pockets lined with "coins and bills."

When my Grand Aunt died, our New Year's Day celebration was held regularly at the house of my mother's sister, my aunt. This time, the celebration became limited to our close family. This tradition went on up until I finished high school.

My aunt's house was located in Sta. Ana, an old district of Manila. It was a lovely property, of a two-story wood and stone house amidst countless trees - kaimito, niyog, guavas, langka, duhat, atis and bananas. But the best part was that her house was beside the Pasig River.

In those years, late 50's and early 60's, the Pasig River was a body of water where kids could still swim during the hot days of summer. In short, it was still clear and clean and when one was riding a banca, one could look underneath, and actually see some seaweeds and waterlilies floating by.

In my university years, our New Year's Day celebration was transferred to our house in Mandaluyong.

Somewhere along those years, someone introduced the idea of "kris kringle." So what happened was that days before New Year, each member of the family would draw a name from a pool of folded papers, and the chosen name became "your kringle." On New Year's Day, after the traditional hearty lunch, we would gather around in the 'sala' or living room and my mother would start the roll. She would call out her "kringle," and give her/him a gift. Then this person would call out her/his kringle, and so forth and so on.

As the years passed and my sisters and cousins got married and started to have kids, the list of "kringles" or "monitos" became longer and more interesting. And the price of the gifts became more expensive as the years went by.

About three years ago, when I went home to the Philippines to celebrate the Holidays there, we had our traditional New Year's Day celebration in the hotel room where I was staying. So each family brought a dish, and we were able to sing karaoke without any complaints from anyone. And because I had already given my gifts in advance (before Christmas), I resorted to raffling some items as prizes for the parlor games we all enjoyed. I know other balikbayan Filipinos who raffled really expensive items for their relatives, all in the spirit of the holiday gift-giving.

So what to give this Holiday Season? I started by giving a bottle of wine to my doctor today.

Next week, I will meet a friend for dinner. Hmmm....