GOT up early on the first Sunday of December and saw my visiting sister Embeng Trinidad from Novaliches lying on the sofa and my brother Eric drinking a glass of juice on the dining table.

I was half awake and intended to resume sleeping, but their voices carried into my youngest sister Gigi’s room where I was her guest.

“What’s with those two?” I asked. “It’s not even daybreak yet.”

“They’re like hens and roosters and cackle and crow at the first light of morning,” Gigi replied.

We slept again and got up at the reasonable weekend hour of 8 a.m., by which time Eric had gone out to the bakery and brought back a big brown bag of hot pan de sal.

My husband Rolly, who earlier took the midnight bus from Baguio, was at the veranda leafing through the Sunday papers with his first cup of coffee.

And so another Sunday began in the lives of the Lolargas and their extended family on Santa Clara Street, Barangay Kapitolyo, Pasig.

Embeng brought out from the fridge a container of newly rinsed autumn grapes, she called them, the kind used to make wine. Rolly and I got two pieces each.

Plans for lunch were made as my Antipolo-based sister Pinky Susi called to say she’d join the midday repast with her two daughters. Assigned to bring a family-size bilao of pancit, she passed on the task of ordering this to another sister, Suzy.

My youngest daughter Ida sought my help in editing her Powerpoint presentation, but when Embeng saw me reclining on the bed with the laptop, she ordered me to accompany her to S&R to buy whole chickens from the Rotisserie.

“I don’t have enough cash to shop,” I protested. No need, she said. Just push the shopping cart for me and walk for exercise.

So another brother, Dennis, drove us, but once we got there, Embeng the foodie announced, “Let’s eat first,” and made a beeline for the pizza queue.

After that, we headed for the shopping aisles. I pointed out that we were there only to buy roast chickens, but Embeng insisted we move from aisle to aisle to check out the goodies. Before long she and Dennis were putting assorted items into our cart. Even I joined in, selecting a hefty packet of roasted, salted pistachios for Rolly.

While waiting for our three chickens to roast evenly, Dennis tossed a pack of chopped up Cebu lechon in the cart. Embeng whispered, “Hindi rin nakatiis (He can’t stand it).”

Back home since we couldn’t fit around the table, we ate in batches. Midway Mommy arrived with a skinny girl of about 6. Embeng said, “Mommy took in another orphan. Maybe she’ll make the girl do the gardening and laundry.”

Mommy started to fill up the girl’s plate, but I chastised her—why are you giving her the boney parts and wings? She ignored me; I pointed to a thick slice of lechon: “Give her that.”

Embeng piled up on her hand Hershey’s Kisses for the girl whose name I learned was Wen. She was the daughter of the lady guard of our street, and her alcoholic father had abandoned them.

As she ate her lunch, Mommy sat by her side and interviewed, nay, interrogated, her.

Embeng took me aside, saying there goes Mommy again, meddling in other people’s lives. Why can’t she begin charity at home or with herself?

She balks at the idea of spending money for her quarterly medical checkups and would rather give away the money we give her to the scholars of her Legion of Mary.

She refuses to ask for financial support from my brother Junic all the years that he worked in Abu Dhabi and now in Canada. She likes to boast he spent for her when she visited him. But when was that? In 1997.

Before Embeng could continue her tirade against Mommy, it was time to learn how the Pacquiao-De la Hoya fight was progressing.

Gigi heckled Pacquiao when he came onscreen, reading aloud the products advertised on his shorts—“All it lacks is Carefree with wings, Modess and Lactacyd.”

At the back of my mind was an unfinished homework in my electronic media subject in school. I brought out my storyboard of “A Berry in Boracay,” my box of 68 crayons and a ream of Oslo paper.

My 6-year-old niece Bianca assisted me in drawing and coloring the objects. We drew and colored the rest of the afternoon away.

As we wound down our activity, Mommy covered half of the veranda table with a bedsheet and unzipped her mahjong case. Joining her were Ruth and Gigi, the last wanting to quit after her initial losing streak.

So I put my hand on her left shoulder and proclaimed, “I’m passing on good luck to you.” And behold she won all the consecutive games, each time breaking into a dance on her seat, making the thumbs-up sign, moving her arms in a circle before her rivals and taunting them by singing, “I’ve got to move it, move it.” She split her winnings with me. I ended up P60 richer.

Elsewhere, Rolly met up with my older daughter Kimi to buy DVDs. Ida wanted to have dinner at Serendra, but it was out of the question and out of the way. We met at Oyster Boy.

Midway through our three courses of oysters Rockefeller, seafood kare-kare and grilled squid, budget-conscious Ida rued aloud, “We should just have stayed home and ate the leftovers.”

I said, “There are no more leftovers. Pacman Eric made sure of that when he came home from his basketball game.”

We moved to Iceberg for dessert. While the kids had their Oreo banana split, Rolly and I shared a parfait glass with one scoop each of sugar-free buko pandan and mango ice cream. Groups of families kept arriving for dinner and dessert.

We arrived home to catch everyone eating reheated leftovers and Pinky and her girls getting ready to leave. I hugged Bianca tightly as she got into her new leggings and beloved pair of pink rubber boots.

I got ready for bed. Gigi pulled up my thin blanket to my chin. My last thought after that long day was how fortunate we were to get together that Sunday and one Sunday every other month.

I think of my cousins and in-laws scattered across North America, how close to impossible, if not how exorbitant, for them to have reunions, whereas the distances of Baguio, Novaliches, Antipolo and Pasig can be easily negotiated.

As for Junic and his family in wintry Calgary, I can only send them warm thoughts this Christmas.