For most of us, it's no small irritation we may have to put up with an austere Noche Buena next week.

Whether we're conscious of it or not, being preoccupied with Noche Buena is high in our thoughts as the "wheel of the year tips to its lightening side."

Yet, even if old December nights' long "dark sweeps" are less burdensome with the anticipations of imagined gifts and feasts, a dark question envelopes the joyous year-end occasion in any Filipino home, rich or poor.

Will our Christmas Eve feast be okay? Or, more accurate and grave: Are we going to survive even if we have less food on the table?

It's an annoying, perhaps even devastating question many of us certainly cannot ignore.

More so since there's a cold warning from the government that prices of at least 12 Noche Buena foods are on the uptick.

The government says ham, fruit cocktail, cheeses, Queso de bola, mayonnaise, sandwich spread, pasta, elbow macaroni, salad macaroni, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, and creamer dangerously titter on becoming unaffordable. This, despite unofficial price controls.

Does that mean we now face the prospect of not being able to console ourselves even with basic Filipino festive foods this year?

Hopefully no.

Needless to say, these foods or food ingredients have long been the consoling gustatory signs of being a quintessential Filipino during the Christmas season.

Why can't we renounce the centerpiece Christmas ham, the Queso de Bola, the fruit salad, the macaroni salad, and the sweet Pinoy spaghetti (which no Filipino child can do without their essential presence on the Christmas Eve table)?

True, there is something seductively delicious about such humble fare, with which we go to mean lengths to buy, cook, and serve.

But there must be something more to these than what it does to our bellies. Somehow something gets revealed, something singular and special about us Filipinos when we do so.

Perhaps, the late Doreen Fernandez's familiar idea of gathering family over occasional festive food, even if humble, provides the answer.

The noted food writer wrote: "The Noche Buena, night of goodness, is to the Filipino not really just Christmas Eve, to which the term refers, but also and specifically the meal shared by the family after the midnight Mass… It is not usually shared with guests, only with family, and usually only with the nuclear family, the very closest and dearest. It is for many Filipino families, therefore, the most meaningful meal of the year."

Such a meaningful meal then is more just a family waxing merry while indulging in food on Christmas Eve.

Noche Buena food, no matter how humble, is a subtle incantation for the family.

And what is more important than family?

Truly, a family left in a mellow state as it gathers to eat and talk at the end of the year perhaps gives a family the means to again face whatever the coming year brings.

Such a festive memory, even if accompanied by subdued food, then is about a family steeling itself against life's vicissitudes.

Still, Noche Buena for each one of us is a psychic refuge, a pure and elevated delight.

Of course, enjoying any delight can merely taunt us by its brevity. Even as we indulge ourselves in it, we suffer the anticipation of its loss.

Noche Buena, like any joyous occasion in our lives, does indeed remind us that uncertainties exist more frequently than certainties.

Yet, life's caprice can take a back seat, even momentarily. And at that moment, particularly as it ends, we have again transformed ourselves.

True, it is quite possible many of us this year might not be able to overstuff ourselves. But let it not be a worry.

The ultimate distillation of festive food is that even humble food is still food for the soul.

Email: nevqjr@yahoo.com.ph