Christmas markets

The Christmas traffic can make you want to hibernate in a cave until the holidays are over. At the Port of Manila, congestion is still so bad, except for the well-connected, that many Christmas shipments will be released only in time for the Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day.

Still, I tell foreigners when I’m abroad that the Christmas season is one of the best times to visit the Philippines. The lights, whether in commercial centers, government facilities or private homes, are as cheerful and warm as the spirit that infuses the typical Filipino household.

The Pinoy Christmas table reflects chunks of Philippine history, from the Spanish colonial period to American traditions. Since we don’t have Thanksgiving Day, roast turkey is for Noche Buena and New Year feasts, along with lechon. Yearlong diets are ruined during the holidays; the highest rates of strokes and heart attacks are reportedly recorded during Yuletide. I don’t think regular warnings about the health risks ever stopped the food binge.

Since we like to crow about having the longest Christmas season in the world (from the onset of the so-called ’ber months) and over-the-top Yuletide celebrations, we might as well promote this as a uniquely Filipino tradition worthy of tourism.

If the Mexicans can turn their Dia de Muertos or Day of the Dead into a major tourist draw, complete with a carnival-type parade, we should be able to do something similar with our Christmas celebration. In 2008, Dia de Muertos was inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

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Our churches are especially enchanting during Christmas and can be promoted as tourist stops. Right within Metro Manila, there are several churches that can form part of a heritage tour package, starting with the oldest, San Agustin in Intramuros. Its convent and museum, reopened only recently, has one of the richest collections from the Spanish colonial period. San Agustin, which started as a structure of nipa and bamboo built by the Augustinians in 1571, is one of the baroque churches in our country classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Nearly as old as San Agustin is the Our Lady of the Abandoned church in Sta. Ana, also in Manila. Originally called the Santa Ana de Sapa (Saint Anne of the Marshes), it was built on marshland by Franciscan missionaries in 1578.

Then there’s the Gothic San Sebastian church in Quiapo, made mainly out of steel prefabricated in Belgium and completed in 1891. The structure needs better insulation; on warm days you may feel like you’re baking in an oven. But the church has been designated as a National Cultural Treasure and is on UNESCO’s Tentative List of World Heritage Sites.

South of the city of Manila is the St. Joseph Parish church in Las Piñas, home of the two-centuries-old Bamboo Organ. The Earthquake Baroque church, completed in 1819, is at its loveliest during Yuletide.

Back in the city of Manila there’s the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene or St. John the Baptist Parish. Its original bamboo-and-nipa structure was constructed by the Franciscans but torched to the ground in 1574 by the Chinese pirate Limahong when he sacked Manila. A new structure was founded in 1588.

Apart from the image of the Black Nazarene, the Quiapo church used to be renowned for the stalls on its surrounding sidewalk that sold herbs for abortion. In high school and college I knew schoolmates who went to Quiapo first to buy the herbs. If the concoctions didn’t work, the girls went to doctors to terminate their pregnancies.

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I’m not sure if the herbal stalls are still there. But the church is surrounded by one of the most interesting commercial centers in the country, with a special appeal during Christmas.

Past a street where you can buy vegetables and the round fruits popular for New Year’s is the Quinta Market’s handicraft section under the Quiapo bridge where you can buy Christmas lanterns and other native holiday décor.

The surrounding streets are stocked with Pinoy Christmas fare. Carlos Palanca street is home to succulent (and pricey) Excelente Chinese ham. (Also on the street is the Shoe Mart building where the SM empire started.) The street is lined with shops and sidewalk stalls selling Christmas tinsel and gift wrappers, dried fruits and nuts for fruit cake, Marca Pato and Marca Piña quezo de bola. Along the sidewalks you’ll find chestnuts truly roasting on an open fire.

We should start developing our open markets into travel destinations. Open markets showcase aspects of a nation’s culture. I seek out such markets in every country that I visit. I sample local cuisine, buy souvenirs and take a lot of photos.

Europe has Christmas markets that are renowned and are part of tour packages. I believe the market in Dapitan can compete. With just a bit of development – and I don’t mean yet another sprawling shopping complex – that area in Sampaloc, Manila can be turned into a top tourist draw, and not just during Christmas.

Several blocks away is the flower market of Dangwa – named after the bus company whose principal route is Manila-Baguio City where the cut flowers come from, and whose Manila terminal is located in that area along Dimasalang and Laong-Laan in Sampaloc. At Dangwa you can find roses in all the colors of the rainbow, in all the shades of red and pink and yellow.

The vendors are trained to make flower arrangements for every occasion, from festive during Valentine’s Day to sorrowful for funerals. For Christmas, they have wreaths and poinsettia-themed arrangements.

The sights in these specialty markets are magical. We should share the magic with the world.

A merry Christmas to all!