Grandma Day
by: Gilda Cordero-Fernando
Grandma Day is what I call that day I
devote solely to the grandchildren. We may spend it in the house or I may take them
out to a special puppet show, a stage play, a kiddie Concert or museum with a
children's exhibit. Or we could have a picnic lunch. I try my best to avoid taking
them to a movie or to buy toys, which I think is a cop-out. It is the day everything
I believe in must be put into practice, so I plan very well.
Grandma Day is supposed to be a healthy
day, and so the kids cannot ask for Coke or bottled drink or any junkees. Instead,
we have fresh-squeezed juice, whole-wheat sandwiches, hopia, maybe sushi, lots
of popcorn, peanuts, fruits.
I used to take the grandchildren and the
picnic basket and the thermos to a nook in Luneta that is an artists' sculpture
garden. It was a secluded place with a fountain and shady trees around a
circular stone bench where they played with their toys or did art (I encouraged
origami). The toddlers napped. I have not seen it recently, but it used to be a
quiet spot where people go to draw or paint or read, and once I saw a housewife
cutting a dress pattern.
If we spend Grandma Day at home there is a
moratorium on TV, video games and canned shows. It is the time the cousins
truly discover one another. They throw all my sofa cushions into the sunken
sala and dive into them. One child is always the "director" They have
a great many battles between good guys and "creatures," walking up
and down the ledges and over my snow-white pillows. I am always the monster.
They like to include me because I can spit and claw and hiss and am an expert
at all kinds of dying.
One day we were finally able to put
together some ethnic instruments - a bamboo xylophone, a drum, a rain stick (long
bamboo containing mongo beans that sound like rain when upended), several
bamboo clappers, maracas, tambourines and prayer bells. The grandchildren are
aged eight down to one-and-a-half and so they can only do percussion. My
son-in-law directs this passionate band in interesting beats like singkil and
ati-atihan. The holy days are observed with some kind of ritual, such as a
tableau. On Christmas it consists of the kids costuming themselves (with the
help of their mamas) with swags of cloth from my old baul. They become Mary, Joseph,
the Three Kings, the shepherds and also the animals around the manger. There is
no dialogue because no one is a particularly good actor. The whole idea is just
to be able to freeze the tableau and snap their Christmas photo quick, before
the Baby Jesus (the youngest grandchild) lying on straw in a soapbox begins to
fret.
As the kids grow the Christmas show gets
more sophisticated. Last December we had vari-colored satin cloths for backdrop
and "clouds." Every child wore wings-the small one’s paper wings, the
bigger ones chicken- feather wings. There was a narration and singing. Some
years back the adults started getting into the act as "the animals that
visited the manger."
They crawled on all fours and became very
funny. Once my hefty son decided to be a donkey and carried on his back his
wife (who was then Mary), with their baby, and the Flight to Egypt somehow got
into the Nativity Scene.
The problem of Christmas is, of course, how
to set a spiritual tone before the pandemonium of the gifts takes over. In my
experience candles always create a reverend mood. One time we stuck one long
candle each into a fruit of the earth -an orange, an apple, a star apple, a
chico, an avocado.
Each child walked carrying this
candle-fruit from a darkened room to a lighted one and around the belen. As we
walked, an adult narrated the Christmas story. The candles were laid at the
feet of the Christ Child with everyone singing carols.
The gifts of all the families are placed
around the belen or under the tree. The names on the gifts are read by the
oldest family member, Dad, into the karaoke and each recipient comes forward.
Everyone in the household gets a gift, including all the former yayas and
drivers and plumbers and strays who make a Christmas visit.
Our married children have their own,
beautiful, traditional Christmas trees so I never bother to have one. The only
"tree" I ever put up was composed of all the "animals" in
the house-an elephant pedestal, a lacquered giraffe, a carousel horse, a papier
mache carabao, a brass turtle carrying a betelnut box, a carved San Roque's
dog. Above them hung, not a star, but a giant papier mache piñata of Philippine
fruits.
I find it important to stress the
significance of the holy days. When the kids are a little bigger and can take
this over, I would like them to involve the neighborhood in a panunuluyan (Mary
and Joseph looking for shelter). Imagine if they can have a real horse to walk
them from house to house! Like it or not, the Western Easter egg hunt has
overtaken us so we, too, decorate eggs and hide them on Easter Sunday. But I
make a point of explaining to the kids first why the egg is used as the symbol
of the Resurrection. The egg represents the world and a new beginning that was possible
for us because of Christ's death and resurrection. If there are some chocolate
or plastic eggs their parents have gotten from the hotels, it becomes possible
to point out that a fake egg can never hatch life, never produce a live chick,
only dead chocolates.
I was never happy with having just a Western
ritual-so one Easter we had a salubong as well. Our big antique virgin, head
covered with a black veil, was hoisted on a platform and carried by the kids
from the garden to the lanai to meet the statue of Christ carried by the other
kids from the kitchen. They stopped face to face under the kalachuchi tree. A
simple plastic string mechanism lifted the Virgin's veil for the meeting. And
the Virgin Mother beheld her risen Son. Everyone sang and threw kalachuchi. Another
activity of Grandma Day is connecting the grandchildren to the family tree. On
their departed great grandmother's birthday, I was moved to bring out the
magnificent English china that she had left me. My children and their father
planned and executed the traditional dinner that we served on this huge set of
antique dishes.
The big serving plate held the chicken
pochero with fat sausages, the graceful covered soup tureen, its broth. The apahap
lay in its red sauce in the oval server and the pasta curled in a deep oval
dish. The roast basked on the biggest bandehado, the gravy dish beside it. The
fruit salad was in the same cut-glass bowl my mother served it in all her life.
The fruit tray overflowed with donated grapes and mandarins. On the cake tray
sat a warm apple pie.
Of course, we were using the finely embroidered
tablecloth of my old home, thin from laundering and unobtrusively patched here
and there. Mama's fine etched wine glasses were out, too, as my sons had good
wines to pour into them. I resolve to bring out my mother's china periodically,
even if I have to wash everything personally. It is the only way my grandchildren
will appreciate good things - not merely look at them through the glass
cabinet. Grandpa's dinner itself gives them an idea of what a good home-cooked
meal in great grandma's time was like.
During the meal my husband and I try to
recall anecdotes about our parents. It gives the grandchildren a sense of
family history. Our children continue it when they come up with funny incidents
in their own modern lives. We know they will tell and retell our stories and
theirs-to their children and grandchildren, hopefully over dinner on great grandmother's
plates.
Comments