i hate this. i miss spending christmas in tabaco. the visual memory of walking to the streetsides to ride on the padyak, my blurry visions of the church altar while i pretend to listen, the exact crevices of the asphalt roads while we walk back home, i can still remember them.

but now my father wants us to regularly go to pampanga for christmas vacation. like, what the hell. i don't even speak kapampangan. sadness.

ever since my siblings started leaving tabaco to go on with their lives, we had been spending our christmas break in pampanga. last year, when we left because of the typhoon, we stayed there and snored the holiday away.

to be honest, i hate going there. sure, our whole lineage came from pampanga, but i didn't even grow up in that place. i don't even know the names of my relatives!

i told my father four hours ago that i wanted to stay here in quezon city and just follow them in the 24th, so i can be so jumpily happy with my internet life. he said no. i can still remember my christmas memories in my parents' hometown. we stay inside our granparents' hut like lethargic people, sitting our asses away simply because pampanga barrio lifestylewasn't the lifestyle we had. no, i don't wash plates, i don't feed chickens and i don't take a bath in deep wells. gahd. why is it so hard to understand?

i told my father that, frankly, christmas in pampanga bores me to death. and besides, he was the only one who enjoys it. he goes out, drinking beer and palying mahjong with the rest of his childhood friends while we sit on bamboo stools and ponder on the worth of our lives. i know that was mean but i just couldn't stand wasting holidays on that place. it's just so lonely.

all i want to do is to go home where i grew up. my memories are there, not in pampanga. honestly, the thought of staying even a day in that barrio makes me cringe and curse in my head. i am a very mean child. god help me.

i just want..christmas.