Silent Night

I knew it. I knew I would tear up on Silent Night.

In my past 32 yuletides, Christmas carols never did much to move me. They just happened to be there every year, nothing grander than just a constant reminder that it’s that time of the year to be more tolerant and loving of people you simply could do without. Last night though, being my first Christmas away from the comforts of home, something as mundane as Silent Night broke my resolve.

We heard mass at the Holy SeeItalian Embassy, organized by the Italian Embassy, one of the few to hold a Catholic mass on Christmas Eve in a predominantly Hindu country. Technically, it wasn’t even a “midnight mass,” having been held at eight in the evening. The small church was packed (which was good; more people, more body warmth on a chilling winter evening).

Our six-week in-country orientation had drawn to a close the day before and I have been feeling very restless what with Christmas day fast approaching. Most of the volunteers whom I’ve been with the past several weeks were also spending their first Christmas away from home. But I think the pressure inside me was building up faster than the other’s. The volunteer training had been dragging on at a time when festivities would have already been starting back home. At the last minute, I was still struggling with my Hindi lessons while people back home had already shifted to party mode as they would normally do around this time. I was reading blankly through handouts on monitoring and evaluation while my family back home was doing the annual ham roasting.

So to get into the holiday groove, I took out my Christmas stocking from my suitcase. My mom snuck it in just before I left (thank God for mothers, they have the gift of foresight for nonchalant daughters like me). I filled up the stocking with candies and brought it to the VSO office. Around this time, VSO has taken out its Christmas tree for us to decorate. This was poignant for me since I was used to doing this activity with family particularly with my nephews. And usually, we never ever shred pieces of cotton and sprinkle them around the tree (hello, tropical country, no snow) like we did this time at VSO. Europeans + snow = white Christmas. I joined in the fray anyway because what the hey, that was the closest I could ever get to snow anyway.

Back home, I was too lazy to dress up and hear midnight mass. I was usually the few ones left at home while my brothers and my parents were busy preparing dinner. I would do my share of last-minute gift-wrapping for anyone else who didn’t have the time to do it. And then I’d watch TV catatonically then maybe doze off, get up when everyone else has come back from the mass, and have dinner. This year, as an ode to family tradition I never ever followed, I decided to dress up and hear mass, if only to feel the Christmas spirit and make my mother happy.

And then Silent Night. I mean, c’mon, the choir wasn’t even that good. But it’s the final realization that after that mass, I wasn’t coming home to good old Pleasant Village to sit down and have dinner with family. It sucks. No matter how much I tried to convince myself that I truly wanted a different twist to that special day by spending it in a totally different country with people who are not even related to me by blood, it was still a very disorienting experience. I did have fun and enjoyed my Christmas with newfound friends but the cliché hovers way above the Christmas lights and the fancy dinners: there’s just no place like home.

Christmas eve, so far away fom home