I came across this old video from Singaporean producer/actor/singer Alvin Oon from 2020, and it took me back to the time of COVID – when the world stood still, but we still found ways to keep on moving. 

It’s him singing “We’re Not Going to Anywhere This Christmas” (sung to the tune of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”). Here’s the video:

A Christmas Song That Only 2020 Could Have Produced

Alvin sings about not being able to travel. Everyone had to stay home that year. But the song never turns bitter. Instead, it lands on a simple idea: what matters most is having the person you love right there beside you.

It is a light, cheery piece about going nowhere. He reminisces about old trips and adventures. He reminds you to stay indoors, and to wear a mask if you really must go out. The whole thing is unmistakably a product of 2020. Anyone in the world who hears it will be pulled back to their own Christmas during the pandemic.

Mine was in Metro Manila.

The First Christmas of the Pandemic in the Philippines

Much like Alvin, we lost the option to travel that December.

The early COVID months in the Philippines were all checkpoints, face shields, and Enhanced Community Quarantines. If you were here, you remember the quarantine pass. You needed one to move from one city to another. Each household got a single pass, and you carried it with you just to buy groceries.

By December, the rules had loosened a little. Metro Manila had shifted to a lighter quarantine classification, and vaccines were finally being approved and administered abroad. That gave us something to hold on to, even though the Philippine rollout would not begin until March 2021.

Still, that first Christmas of the pandemic looked nothing like the ones before it.

What Filipino Christmas Usually Looks Like

In our family — like most Filipino families, I would say — Christmas means big reunions.

Just the year before, we had kept our usual tradition. My wife’s family came over before Christmas. My side came over on Christmas Day itself. Two gatherings, two full tables, one long week of noise.

In 2020, none of that was possible. Large gatherings were prohibited.

We were among the lucky ones, though. Our family was complete and everyone was healthy that Christmas. Even my apo came to visit. Nothing on my wish list came close to that.

Keeping the Tradition, Even Apart

We did not spend Christmas Eve together, which broke a long-standing family habit. There was still a curfew back then, if I remember correctly.

So we did the next best thing. We got on a Zoom call and ate our Noche Buena separately, together.

Everyone came to visit on Christmas Day. That is when we took this picture:

It felt good to be in the same room after more than nine months of quarantines and closed doors. We were hopeful because of the vaccines. But we honestly did not know what this “New Normal” everyone kept talking about would turn out to be.

We made the effort anyway, because it was tradition. We did not want to lose it.

A New Way of Keeping in Touch

Looking back, the biggest change was not what we gave up. It was what we picked up.

Like the rest of the world, we adapted. We leaned on every remote tool we could find. Almost overnight, an entire generation of Filipino families got comfortable with video calls — not because anyone trained us, but because we wanted to stay close.

Instead of one big gathering that Christmas season, we had calls. We sent photos and videos on top of the usual messages. In some ways, it was better. We were staying home and being responsible, and I could actually see everyone’s faces. A face-to-face visit would have meant masks and shields anyway.

Then the world opened up, and that habit never left.

What We Kept From That Christmas

We are back to our big family gatherings now. The tables are full again, and so is the house.

But there is always a phone propped up somewhere. Whoever could not fly in or drive over joins by video call. We still talk, still catch up, still tease each other across the screen.

That is the part of 2020 worth keeping. We learned that presence is not only physical, and that a tradition can bend without breaking.

We were not going anywhere that Christmas. As it turned out, we did not have to.