Christmas is family affair and for Christians, whatever the nationality, we take that to heart.
But on two Christmases in the past, I found myself away from the Philippines, both in colder environments.
My first Christmas outside of the Philippines was in Hanoi, in 1984. In 1991, it was in Versailles, France,
At the end of the conference I and three other Filipinos who attended a conference in Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon) in the third week of December 1984, were asked if we wanted to go to Hanoi.
My other companions, from the academe and labor unions, declined the invitation, as they didn’t want to spend Christmas away from home. It’s seldom that one gets an invitation to communist Hanoi so I readily said “Yes.”