a holly jolly holland christmas

"Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store, maybe Christmas is a little bit more"
- The Grinch who stole Christmas

Confession: I am an ultimate sucker for Christmas. Ask anyone who's known me since my early days of "carolling tayo!" and "decorate na!". In the Pinoy world, Christmas comes early and leaves pretty late. And so, the warm fuzzy feeling hits me hard and stays with me for quite a while. But this year, Christmas came without a chance to eat puto bumbong... or go carolling... or admire Pampanga parols ... or walk around para mang-okray ng dekorasyon ng iba... or attend christmas parties (and videoke-ing! ), or even be with my family and friends. Instead, it came with the onslaught of 0 degree celsius weather and a strange tradition of "Sinterklaas" coming from Spain (the dutch version of Santa Claus).

This was also my first holiday season with Gert, and we spent the whole week of Christmas Day to New Year's Eve at his parent's home in the peaceful, spacious town of Naarden. We were, of course, very much spoiled there as his mom constantly made sure that we were warm, well fed and happy. And it was so wonderful to wake up, look at the window and see the wide open farmland filled with sheep and a nearby windmill. The constant stream of family and friends whom we met were a constant source of delight and intoxication.

So, despite my fear that homesickness would hit me during the holidays, I discovered that the feeling of home is still possible.

My Christmas Highs list:
1. Christmas Eve - attending a christmas concert where Jacco (Gert's cousin) was a bass in the choir. I so miss the music of a choir... kinilabutan ako listening to them. We ended up having noche buena with Jacco, his housemate Linda & Linda's family... and having my pansit bihon as part of the noche buena! (sigh, little tear there)

2. Christmas Day - the whole van Dijk family spent it at Naarden: father, mother, 2 brothers, one uber-chika sister-in-law, gert, me, an unbelievably cute 9 month old baby and pettie, the family dog. Spent the afternoon gambling (yes, gambling!) with jokeren, and having dinner shabu-shabu style (called "gourmet" here). Post-dinner, the ladies watched/sang with the Sing-along of Sound of Music TV special while the men opted to play cards again.

3. Spa/ Sauna - a relaxing center with various rooms and pools of varying temperatures. Oh, and everyone was naked. hehehe.

4. Post-Kerst Dinner with Michiel, Pepijn & Ferrie... playing Sinterklaas... ending up with some pretty nice & funny gifts... a round of "what was your top 3 highs of the year"...and getting a bit drunk throughout the process. Am so glad to have made friends with such sweet guys.

5. Visiting the titas & titos...Tita Mellie & Tita Irma... my mom's friends...the closest thing to a pinoy family that I have here, complete with pancit palabok, shrimp termidor, sinigang and litson manok. It's hard to describe the joy that comes with finding out that you'll be eating pinoy food after not eating it for so long.

6. New Year's Eve - spent it with gert's 2 oldest closest friends (Menno, Fabian), Shella (Menno's Pinay wife) and Snel (Fabian's oh-so-funny-and-sarcastic friend). An intimate and quiet occasion where we watched the amazing fireworks from the 3rd floor home of our host. These were the kind of fireworks that you could only see in Ayala or Makati. Quite an eye-popper for me, and so I couldn't stop saying "wow... huwaaaw"

7. Baking with de moeder - Gert's mom also taught me how to bake their traditional holiday treats of olliebollen & appel beignets. We even had the extra challenge of communicating in dutch!! Wooohooo...zal ik de appel keuken nu?... Amazing how I'm turning out to be quite passable in cooking. My new year gameplan is to be able to follow a dutch recipe book (which gert's mom also gave me... hmm... i'm noticing that she doesn't want me to poison her son... hehe)

8. The overall life on the prairie - I am a Manila kid, which basically means I am used to house to house neighborhoods and crowded streets. So, it was quite a tranquil experience to be in the platteland. I wake up and see sheep outside the door/window. It makes it motivating to go out for a walk despite the cold.

So, Christmas came still... in a different way from what I'm used to... a bit quieter... and i, of course, still miss my own family & friends back home... but it was just as lovely and wonderful... and more importantly, twas spent with people dear to me.

pinoy ukay ukay in Holland

Pinoy ukay ukay lives on in the Netherlands.

Last December, the four Pinoy students from the old batch graduated from ISS, and returned home to the Philippines. Before leaving however, they took part in the age old tradition of pamana (inheritance passing) and ukay-ukay (not entirely sure what the direct translation is... but it has come to mean, old clothes given or sold for uber cheap prices). And so I've managed to inherit some nice sweaters (which came all the way from 2 batches ago, Tutay and Amanda), a CD rack, a photo display dingie and loads of school supplies.

Bayanihan (solidarity) is an integral trait of Filipino communities, circles and other social connections. It warms my heart to experience it as well among the Filipino students here at ISS. Come December, it will be our turn to pass on nuggets of wisdom and ukay-ukay, and I just hope we give justice to the spirit of Bayanihan.

Salamat Agnes, Cates, Rommel at Jason!