What does Christmas mean to me? We have family reunions, feast on seasonal delicacies, along with exchanging Christmas gifts just like everyone else.

Christmas is more of a religious and spiritual celebration consisting on nightly nobenas, singing Christmas carols, and attending midnight services. The nobenas and singing commence nine days before Christmas and are conducted in front of our family’s nativity scene. The nativity scene is decorated with various religious icons and moss that the men gather in the jungle. Incidentally, the men also forage for dagu to make the traditional bonelos dagu. The nativity consists of a statue of the Ninu, the three Kings, Joseph, the Virgin Mary, and various farm animals.

When the nobena ends, everyone pays their respect to the family elders with the traditional man nginge. Afterwards, the family eats a light meal comprised of bonelos dagu, various Chamorro pastries, corn soup, red rice, potato salad, ahu, and an array of barbecued meat. This ritual will be repeated for nine consecutive days and will culminate to a big feast on Christmas day.

On Christmas Eve, my family attends a midnight service at our parish. The services can be quite lengthy because the traditional ceremony includes a re-enactment of the story leading to Jesus’ birth in the manger. The re-enactment will also include the three kings presenting gifts and humbling themselves to the baby Jesus.

After this, my family goes back home and has a feast on all the seasonal delicacies: turkey, ham, prime-rib, potato salad, yams, various pastries and eggnog. We say grace, eat a little bit, and start passing out the gifts.

The house is filled with the joyful sounds of elated children and happy grandparents. Christmas is a time to celebrate Christ’s birthday. And my family does it in a big way!

“Felís Pasgua yan Magof Anu Nuebu”!