I grew up in a province in the Philippines and as a kid, our Christmas trees are nothing like the fancy pine trees. Ours are dried trees which my grandfather will collect from a forest. He’ll bring something home and together we will wrap them up with white crepe papers. When it’s all wrapped, we will start decorating it with colorful baubles and ornaments and then of course, Christmas lights! I regret that we don’t own a camera back then and we know nothing about documenting holidays like that.

Now, I have my own family but for 10 years we did not have a tree like other families do. It was our first time to have one this year and the girls loved decorating it. And because I’m a memory keeper now, I’d make sure to have as many photos as we can so our children have some memories to go back to when they grow up and have their own families.