Philippine Christmas symbol

Indubitably, the most popular Philippine Christmas symbol is the star lantern. The belen was found mostly in churches and affluent homes, the star lantern, everywhere. All that is needed to make a star lantern are ten long and five short pieces of bamboo; string, starch, and rice paper; rare is the ruralist who cannot make a star lantern; no home is without one during Christmastide.

The star lantern is a Filipino innovation of the Mexican pinata. Like the belen, the pinata originally came from Renaissance Italy where, during festive occasions, pineapple-shaped pots were filled with sweets and suspended from the ceiling and broken to enliven the celebration. Filipinos also influenced the Mexican fiesta not only for the lanterns but all the ornaments of Chinese paper, the fireworks, the cockfights, and some of the luscious fruits in Mexican celebra-tions originated from the Manila galleon.

The five-pointed lantern represents the star of Bethlehem. The Royal Astronomical Society postulates that the Biblical star was probably a giant thermonuclear explosion caused by a small, dense, dying star in orbit around another star that is probably still shining. The dense, small star would be pulling hydrogen gas off the larger star until the accumulation of the gas around the dense star would detonate in thermonuclear explosion at a certain critical moment. Then the whole process of accumulating hydrogen would start all over again until the next explosion perhaps several thousand years later. Ancient Chinese astronomical treatises of the former Han dynasty records the 70-day appearance of a bright star at the time and place of the biblical star.

Of all the Philippine Christmas symbols, it is only the humble star lantern that evolved into spectacular heights. In the town of San Fernando in Pampanga, the star lanterns are not gargantuan but dazzling displays that reach pyrotechnical splendor. Mounted on big trucks, colossal lanterns are paraded around the plaza before the Misa de Gallo for the most fantastic light festival in the country. The San Fernando lantern spectacle may dazzle the eyes but it is still the uncomplicated candle-lit lantern that tugs at the heartstrings. Filipinos find it difficult to dissociate Christmas from the lantern. When Rizal wanted to depict an unhappy Christmas, he wrote. "It was Christmas Eve but the town was sad. Not one paper lantern hung from the windows..."

The five point lantern is the true measure of spirit of any Philippine Christmas. You can gauge the state of the nation by taking a lantern count. When spirits are high, homes are ablaze with lanterns; when low, there are just enough that the spirit has not altogether died.