Santa Claus came to town :)

When we were kids, our parents would make us sleep early evening of December 24 while they prepare some food for the noche buena. But before we sleep they ask us to hang our socks (literally socks that we used to go to school) near the window so that Santa Claus can easily reach them when he puts our gifts. When it was time to go to the mass (11PM) they would wake us up then we have our noche buena together as exactly 12 midnight.

Then come the exciting part of Christmas (well for us then)- the opening of gifts from Santa. Those gifts were never big time. No super size dolls or super high tech robots or cars for my brothers. Candies, small cheap toys or sometimes just chips. But they were all from Santa Claus.

Later we found out the Santa Claus was not real. That those were our parents who put those things inside our socks while we were sleeping. As far as I know, we didn't feel bad or felt being fooled. Masaya eh. That one point in our lives we "experienced" Santa.

Looking back, I still feel that happy feeling that we have when we were opening the socks.

Now with my kids, I want them to experience the same- to experience receiving gifts from Santa Claus. So when the homeowners officers asked us if we want Santa Claus to personally hand our gifts to the kids, we agreed.

The smile on the face of Gabbie was priceless. And she kept telling us that "Santa Claus came here to give my gift!"

Until when we are going to do this, I can't tell. But I'm sure my kids will be smart enough to know what's real or not when the right time comes. And we will be here to give them guidance.

But for now if they want to believe there is Santa, we'll let them believe.