Christmas Mornings (on hold)

Christmas Mornings and Vacant Seats

|| First Day. Tuesday. December 16. ||

The large chapel was already filling up with people attending the first of the nine Dawn Masses before Christmas. The choir was belting out lively Christmas carols to keep the people awake. Christmas music was always my favorite. Even at nineteen, I still enjoyed singin along to the jolly Christmas carols.

I walked inside the chapel with a beat in my step. I was in such a good mood even at an early morning. My eyes scanned the back row of the chapel for available seats. Most were already taken and some already reserved by the ones who were there waiting for family members.

I moved on further into the interior of the chapel and looked for seats. I greeted familiar faces as I walked further inside the chapel. I saw some family friends and walked over to greet them. After my cheerful greetings with some friends, I went back to hunt for a seat.

"Good morning." I greeted a sleepy-looking girl who sat about three seats from the aisle where I stood. "Is this seat taken?" I asked pointing to the vacant seat in front of me.

The girl lifted her head towards my direction. She had this huge curly hair similar to Merida of the animation movie Brave only in a dark brown shade. She had droopy eyes, most probably because she was sleepy. She was wearing a cute knitted pullover with pink and red hearts design. She looked at me and then towards the seat I was pointing at. She shook her head and said sleepily, "No. But this one is." She pointed at the seat beside her.

"That's fine. I'm alone." I beamed at her and took the seat.

I looked at my wrist watch and learned I was 30 minutes early for the mass. I roamed my eyes to look at the chapel interiors. The decorations were very festive and happy. I couldn't help but smile. I just loved Christmas. The atmosphere was so light and merry.

The large chapel, in my opinion, was around almost 300 square meters in size and seats about 150 people inside and the wide yard outside could probably still hold up about more than 500 monoblock chairs. The whole chapel was painted white on the inside and out. The chapel walls were made of clear glass covered with metal grills in grape vine design. Thre were about six columns on each side of the chapel and on each column were christmas garlands and ornaments.

It was a very beautiful handiwork. The Christmas lights adorned the metal grills and Chritmas lanterns (also known as Parol) hung at every corner of the chapel's exterior ceilings. Christmas was evidently in the air and in every hearts of the hundreds of people in attendance.

The commentator began testing the microphone and announced the arrival of the presiding priest. The people had slowly settled into their respective seats as they waited for the mass to commence.

Time check. It was 4:00 am. The commentator made his welcome speech and everybody stood at his signal and the choir began to sing the entrance hymn. My eyes were fixed on the overhead projector in front as I sung along with the choir.

"Thanks for saving my seat." I hear a guy's voice say to the sleepy girl on my left. I felt him squeezed himself to the space in between us and greeted me good morning.I turned my head to his direction to return his greeting. My eyes almost popped out of its socket and my heart almost stopped because of shock at who I discovered was seated beside me.

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A/N: Yay finally first chapter up. Please do tell me your opinion because it matters. Anyway, forgive whatever error you find.  I am in a hurry to publish and I know it's shortand this is not edited. Next chapter is coming up really soon, promise. However, this story is not my priority at this moment so upcoming updates may be slow.Again, thanks for dropping by and please please vote and/or comment. Thanks a bunch! You are all awesome. xx