Philly Adventures: First Christmas

'Tis the season. Christmas has come and gone but it has rekindled some old memories of living in Philly and of course, my first Christmas experience.

It was December 2000, Christmas was just around the corner. My mother told me that people get presents on Christmas from a fat guy named Santa and that was all I needed to know. Didn't care about all this Jesus Christ stuff, does he give presents on Christmas?? NO (the answer is YES, but try to explain that to a 9 year-old immigrant kid). I knew that Santa wasn't real, but I played along with my parents' stories. That first year in Philly was filled with surprises, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas...no wonder the US is fat. But no matter, I enjoyed myself and got fat, too, haha.

Just like any other kid, I had my eyes set on a toy, for me it was a box of Dominos (not the pizza) at the Big K-Mart in the Gallery Mall. If you are from Philly, you know that the Gallery is a great place to shop...haha. Actually, it's a very ghetto place, but we didn't understand that and everything in K-Mart was cheap so the reputation of the mall didn't matter much. I told my mother that I wanted a set of Dominos. I don't know why I wanted it so much; I should have asked for Power Rangers' action figures or something. So my mother bought a set and told me that we were visiting a family friend in NYC and needed to give their daughter this present. Shit...ok fine. I didn't really care too much because I didn't expect to get it. Money was tight and I understood that.

So we went to NYC and gave the Dominos away to the girl (I don't think she liked it that much). We came home Christmas Eve and spent the day at home. The next morning my mother woke me up and told me to go see if Santa dropped off any presents. So I did, albeit reluctantly and unconvincingly. I walked into the living room cautiously hopeful, not wanting to be too disappointed. And then I saw it, there on the window sill was a box wrapped up in festive Christmas wrapping paper (we didn't have a tree). I took it and ran back into the bedroom (we shared a small bedroom in the apartment) and showed my parents. So I proceeded to rip the wrapping paper and out came the set of Dominos!!!!!!!!!!!! Words cannot explain my excitement. I didn't even know how to play Dominos, haha, but it didn't matter. I was ecstatic.

I told my mother, "Maybe Santa is real." And for that moment I really believed it.