There was only one present under the tree – one lonely-looking package wrapped in gold paper topped with a shiny red bow. It was about the size of a cigar box, though the man knew it couldn’t be that. No one was allowed to smoke here.

***

His mind drifted back to those long-ago Christmas gatherings when the entire family descended upon the two-story, red-roofed house in the Avenues. On a clear day, of which there weren’t many, you could see the sun set on the Pacific.

***

Relatives came from near and far. Aunts and uncles, first and second cousins. Some came all the way from the Philippines. Everyone took turns speaking on the telephone to those who couldn’t make it. The phone wasn’t wireless back then, so they passed around the receiver with the long springy cord. “Hello!” the children would shout before handing the phone to the next in line.

***

Lolo and Lola brought the Christmas tree out of storage every year. It was a 7-foot-tall green plastic tree with bristly branches like oversized pipe cleaners. And it rotated on a metal base containing a speaker that looped a tinny rendition of a classic carol, though he couldn’t recall which one.

***

The manger scene barely fit under the tree. The heads of the three wisemen and the shepherds stuck up into the last row of plastic bristles, like they were lost in the clouds. There were so many gifts stacked under the tree by Christmas that you couldn’t even see the swaddled baby Jesus.

***

Lola made her rounds throughout the evening, emptying ceramic ashtrays overflowing with ash and crushed butts. Nearly all the adults smoked back then, including his parents, and it wasn’t long before the ashtrays were spilling over again.

***

“Merry Christmas,” said the nurse as she placed a tray on his table. “I’ll be back to pick it up later.” The man moved his wheelchair forward and lifted the metal lid to uncover a plateful of overcooked turkey, runny mashed potatoes, and soggy vegetables. “Merry Christmas,” he whispered, but the nurse had already left the room.

***

He recalled sprinting up the front staircase and making a beeline for the appetizers. Chips and dips. Nuts and olives. Almond-encrusted cheeseballs and homemade lumpia. I’d be rich, thought the man, if I had a dollar for all the lumpia I ate back then. He made a motion with his left hand of dipping a lumpia roll into a cup of vinegar and soy sauce. He could almost taste it.

***

The main course consisted of ham and turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, string beans and onions, and bread stuffing. There were also Filipino dishes. Not just lumpia, but also pancit and adobo. His classmates laughed at him when he told them about the Filipino food, and eventually he stopped talking about such things.

***

There was a separate table just for dessert. Cookies, pies, candy-canes, and other treats. Everyone else loved Lola’s homemade flan. He didn’t know why he didn’t like it, and it was only much later in life that he learned he was allergic to eggs.

***

They crammed into the living room after dinner to open presents. One year, when he was six or seven, he received a gift from an uncle who’d just returned from Manila. It was a wood plaque decorated with miniature swords from Mindanao. He pushed the plaque back toward his uncle and said, “I already have one like this.”

“Bastos,” scolded his father. “Say ‘thank you’ to your uncle.”

“Thank you,” he said, though he didn’t mean it.

***

“Well, haven’t you been a naughty boy?” The nurse’s words caught the man by surprise. He didn’t remember wheeling across the room or placing the gold-wrapped present in his lap. When the nurse reached for the package, he held it tight and refused to let go. “Have it your way,” she said eventually, “but this is going in your report.”

***

The man looked over to the doorway to make sure the nurse was gone. Then, thinking back again to how the family gathered around the Christmas tree, he tore off the wrapping paper and opened the cigar-box-shaped box – only to discover it was empty.