family time

The tapok-tapoks have begun. Birthday plus holiday plus welcome back gathering with the family and cousins. Savoring the moment. 🌟

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happy holidays!

It’s the holiday season at the National Museum! Just my second year-end gathering in the “little museum that could,” which can only mean I’m inching closer to my second year here—and to the move back to Dumaguete City from Bohol. Everything feels fast, and yet, somehow, it also feels like a mountain of things has already happened in between. My genuine holiday wish? A return to six-day operations, breathable schedules, clearer and more thoughtful minds all around. Make it happen, dear cosmos. Do your thang. 🥹

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everyday christmas

Since her birthday is also on Christmas Day, it feels like every day is also her birthday the whole month of December. Yey!

dear ma

Just a few words: Christmas Day is always exceptional because of you, and what I want for Christmas is to have more Christmas Days with you—stronger, healthier, happier—so we could travel together more to places you have not traveled to in your prime.

Happy birthday, Ma, and I love you.

merry christmas!

May your Christmas Day bloom with so much joy and blessings, and your loved ones blossom into more beautiful, compassionate souls. That’s my yuletide wish for you.

new poem for the holidays in the sunday times magazine

Happy holidays, my loves! My poem “The Walk Toward Home on a Holiday Season” is published today in The Sunday Times Magazine (22 December 2019), the magazine supplement of The Manila Times newspaper. This will be my Christmas treat for you!

You can buy the paper at your nearest newsstands and bookstores. Here is a link to the poem in case you can’t get a physical copy.

happy birthday, mother dear

Yesterday, December 25, may just be another day to be merry with complete abandon for some, but in this household the 25th of the 12th month of the year means something more. Probably even more than any other celebrations out there.

Because December 25 is also the birthday of my mother, the person who I always wish to become but staggeringly fail. But despite these drawbacks, both big and small, she accepts them, rises above them with grace and generosity. That is why it is easy never not to love her.

Happy birthday, Ma! And Merry Christmas!

happy holidays!

It is now the eve of a day when many people find joy and conjure the most simple of reasons to celebrate the smallest of things—life and warmth, food and shelter, luck and laughter, good decisions, company of friends and family.

So for this particular Christmas, I will make it simple as well: I wish we can have it all throughout the year and in the next, and I wish we will experience these with people who love us, respect us, and who truly matter to us.

From our family to yours, happy holidays!

happy holidays!

It’s that familiar time of the year. Only this time, I am in very unfamiliar place. Thankfully, familiar people surround me in this season of cheers and gratitude.

Greetings from TGB

From Team Carnice in TGB and AKL to yours, along with your relatives and friends, may you have a happy, colorful, Christmas every day of the year. Being joyful and grateful for the blessings and challenges overcome are just a few of the many great gifts you can give to your loved ones all year round (and perhaps also to one’s self).

With the most beautiful birthday girl this Christmas

On top of that, I’d like to add a shout-out to my mother who is celebrating her birthday on this special holiday. Christmas is never complete without her radiating light of love and beauty from inside and out. I wish I could be witness to more of her smiles and various acts of kindness in the coming years. My love for her is as profound as the birthing of a universe.

Greetings from AKL

Once again, happy holidays! Many grand things exist in this world to (ful)fill this lifetime, and one of them is to be reminded of what’s good, honest, and precious in this world. Have a great day.