Last Christmas and New Year's Eve Celebration as a Teen

I used to be very happy when celebrating these two. Specially because I was living in the Philippines where the tradition in celebrating was very rich. But growing up, everything doesn't stay just the way it used to be.

Last night as I said goodbye to 2011, I also said goodbye to my teenage year. No, my birthday wasn't December 31 and it's also not January 1. It's just that, as the new year entered, I knew that I won't be able to turn back time and celebrate again as a young girl.

I will be turning 20 in a few months so I can say that I'll be an adult soon. No more playing games, no more getting those presents, and I have to be more matured.

It was not fun at all. My Christmas was dull, even if I tried to make it fun by being loud and singing with my cousins, the brightness of the season wasn't as bright as it used to be. I used to spend lots of time with my god parents because I was really close to them, but because I am older, I get really shy.

Traditionally, in the Philippines, when a godchild visited his or her godparents' home they will give that child a present. In my case, my godparents always make sure that I receive my yearly gift or money. I feel sorry for having them spend money on me every year. So to prevent them from giving me, I tried to just send them messages as greetings instead of visiting their homes.

I wanted to be with them for a while because we usually see each other only during the season. I used to love eating at their homes, talk to them, laugh. But now, I want to stay away from doing that. If I could, I would just stay at home.

My New Year's Eve celebration wasn't good either. I hated smoke, and in our country smoke is inevitable because of the firecrackers. Though it was better this year because people only used firecrackers during the night. It used to be very noisy in the morning too because of the firecrackers but now it was different.

When we celebrated New Year's Eve in 2010, we made lots of noise, stay together as a family, do the countdown...this year...there was nothing. It was really lacking. We also did something that we don't do before, play games. Probably this was the most exciting part of last night's party.

We played "Pinoy Henyo", I don't know what this game was called in other countries or if they even play this. It was a game where two players sit facing each other to guess a word. They will pick a random number which has an equal word prepared by the game masters, the word will then be placed on the forehead of one player. That player will ask categories or questions answerable by YES, NO or MAYBE. The other player's task was to answer correctly to those questions until the other one gets the word. Quite vague?

So, my bestfriend and I prepared the words, conducted the game. But after that, I realized...hey, I used to be the one playing. Now I'm already the one to prepare things...I really grew older.

Maybe that was just it. As we grow older, we find things really different. It was not as fun or as colorful as it used to be. We forgot how to be contented. We find things difficult. But then...that's life.