Bigwig.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

- By the Carpenters

I was teasing two of my sisters last night that we're still looking for a place to go to on Christmas day. Sabi nga, nagpapaimbita sa pamilya.

I would love to travel to Singapore for Christmas. A relative is inviting us to visit them. But then, I'd already looked at air fares and it looks like it's better to go there after the Holiday rush.

New Year's day is the day when our big family celebrates as a group. And this early, preparations are in place to celebrate it differently this year - instead of converging in a house, we've opted to go to Fontana in Clark - to the outdoors and the waters.

Organizing a group of 40 plus has fallen into the hands of a younger sis and me, while a nephew's in charge of reservation. Sis wants to buy a "lechon" but we convinced her not to because it seems all the oldies are on maintenance drug for hypertension.

Buying gifts for 40 plus is also a daunting task. Whenever the list has ended, a new name seems to crop up.

If Mother were alive today, she'd be extra busy preparing for the trip. But we kids had been trained for long to be on the road during the Holidays. We grew up traveling on Christmas eve to make it on Christmas day to our hometown in Nueva Ecija.

The other day while cleaning up the house, we found an old VHS tape of past Holiday celebrations. I had to hook up the old VCR player to watch it. Old scenes played out. Mom during the 2001 New Year's day party at home, scenes from my March 2001 birthday party, Mica's high school graduation at Don Bosco where Winnie Monsod was the guest speaker, and another New Year's day event - 2002 where the last scene was when everybody sang Jo Mari Chan's "Christmas in our Hearts."

This holiday season, we'll be missing once more the Bigwig of the family - our dearest Nanay.