Cherisse Moe

For our fi­nal fea­ture, Celebri­ty Christ­mas wraps up with Anya Ay­oung-Chee. The on­ly girl in a fam­i­ly of eight, the 28-year-old was this coun­try's 2008 rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Miss Uni­verse Pageant, which was held in Viet­nam.

The 5'7" beau­ty had a life chang­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in 2006, when her younger broth­er, 18-year-old Pi­lar, died in a four-car smash-up that al­so claimed the lives of three of his friends. De­spite this tragedy, Ay­ong-Chee says her broth­er re­mains alive in her heart. To­day, she opens up about her loss, her joys and how both have im­pact­ed on her Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions. Hap­py Hol­i­days!

Q: What does Christ­mas mean to you?

A: Of course, fam­i­ly. It's the time of the year when every­one is to­geth­er. I lost one of my broth­ers two years ago, so for me, it has be­come even more spe­cial be­cause it's the time when we re­mem­ber him the most. This will be my fam­i­ly's third Christ­mas with­out him.

Q: What do you do on Christ­mas day?

A: Be­cause my youngest broth­er looks for­ward to Christ­mas, we all wake up very ear­ly and open presents. Be­cause the rest of us are old­er, we all end up go­ing back to sleep. When we wake up, we have lunch with fam­i­ly, which re­al­ly doesn't start un­til 3 pm. Gen­er­al­ly it's just spent with fam­i­ly, hav­ing lunch all day.

Q: What's your most mem­o­rable Christ­mas mo­ment?

A: I re­mem­ber one Christ­mas a long time ago, we got a Nin­ten­do. I re­mem­ber walk­ing out­side and see­ing my par­ents play­ing Mario Broth­ers and I just thought that was so fun­ny be­cause I caught them!

Q: Can you re­mem­ber your most prized Christ­mas gift?

A: A pair of roller skates. It was one of the years that my par­ents could not af­ford what I want­ed so it meant that much more to me. For some rea­son, that al­ways stands out be­cause it was some­thing they put thought in­to. It was the most touch­ing thing.

Q: Which do you pre­fer, turkey or ham?

A: Ham, for sure. By far!

Q: What do you look for­ward to the most at Christ­mas time?

A: Now, I think it's see­ing my youngest broth­er open­ing his presents. Christ­mas is re­al­ly for chil­dren and it's so won­der­ful to see him get­ting all ex­cit­ed open­ing his presents–it's re­al­ly en­joy­able to see. We just rev­el in the mo­ment of that sur­prise. It's won­der­ful!

Q: When you were young, did you be­lieve in San­ta Claus?

A: I still be­lieve in San­ta Claus! When you have lit­tle broth­ers and sis­ters you have to be­lieve in it un­til they know the truth.