Memories on a Christmas tree

Following a tradition that began with my mother Sonia, I usually set up our Christmas tree right after All Saints' Day.

- JOANNE RAE M. RAMIREZ

It always seemed that after the solemnity of All Saints' Day, and the spooky trimmings of Halloween, the glow and glitter of the Christmas tree is a burst of hope, joy and good tidings.

I have had a couple of themed Christmas trees throughout the past three decades.

When our son Chino was a toddler till he was about 10, our tree had something similar to the "Nutcracker Suite" theme. It was filled with toys, a theme jumpstarted by my first trip to the US.

It was a working trip, and the first time I had been separated from my husband Ed and my then three-year-old son Chino. I was dying of homesickness, even as I was wide-eyed from my own first trip to Disneyland! It was around Fall, and during a visit to Target (a retail Disneyland to me, too), I saw a pack of Christmas-tree ornaments, all toys. The toys, in bright colors, were lined up in rows, just like the prizes in the bunot-bunot games in children's parties. They were a delightful sight.

That started my collection of toys as Christmas ornaments—wooden, resin, a few breakables. Christmas really is for children and though my son was attracted more to the gifts than to the ornaments, the tree was like an homage to my active little boy. Maybe it was my way of making up for work-related absences.