Christmas in our isles, a long enduring feast (First published 1978, TV Times magazine)

If celebrating Christmas were a mania, Filipinos would be the most afflicted. We’re obsessed with it. How or why is weaved in a colorcast of folk and religious tradition, nurtured through centuries yet touched with modern-day practices.

The Filipino Christmas season is the longest in the world – longer than its celebration in the Christmas Islands. Formal observance begins with the first Misa de Gallo, cock’s-crow mass, at dawn of Dec. 16, and ends with the Feast of the Three Kings. But Yuletide carols are played as early as September; malls launch Christmas promos in October; homes sparkle with Christmas trimmings by November.

Many rituals have been lost in the big city. In the country, with its rhythms attuned to nature’s ways and where cooler, longer nights usher in the season, festivity is not only a family but a community affair. Christmas is a huge homecoming. City folk trek to the barrio, balikbayan fly trans-Pacific, long-lost kin reappear for the reunion. Grandparents find occasion to count their growing brood of apo sa tunay, sa tuhod, sa talampakan. Entire municipalities pitch in to make the season singularly merry.

The first week of December finds town urchins fashioning crude instruments for caroling. The eager cumbacheros, untrained in musical art, add flavor to the season’s gaiety with hurried though well-meaning rounds of singing – for a few coins or treats.

Ilocanos have a jolly caroling way called aginaldo blitz, in which a large singing troupe swiftly sweeps the barrio, leaving no home un-tuned nor door un-knocked. The 50 or so troubadours divvy up the collection at the end of the operation. In Pangasinan, the method is called aligando; in Iloilo, the daingon. To Tagalogs, aginaldo has come to mean crisp new peso bills handed out by ninong/ninang, tito/tita, lolo/lola after a quick amen on the back of the mano.

Carols originated as prayers for peace and goodwill. Some are of native spring, others crossed continents from Europe. Modern ones are imported from the US. (Doesn’t “dreaming of a white Christmas” sound silly in the tropics?)

Villacecos are carols that ask for treats. Ige-ige is a formal caroling performed in Bohol auditoriums or churches. Dayao is a Hiligaynon carol in praise of the Virgin Mary. Caviteños call carolers pastores, whose repertoire consists of Spanish and folk tunes.

The musikong buho is the barrio’s austere version of orchestras. Instruments consist of bamboo reeds, a batya drum and, if lucky, a guitar.

Even tribe folk carol for gifts from Christian brothers. A week before Christmas Day, Lumad in Mindanao descend from the hills to the town square to perform ethnic chants, sambual-ay. They plant a tree to which is tied any horned animal, which early Lumad believed could repel evil spirits. Beneath the tree, three boys in bandanas sway to the chanting while a lass rocks a baby doll to sleep. They represent the Three Kings, the Virgin Mary, the Child Jesus.

Igorots from Mountain Province, sticks and metal plates in hand, invade the city streets of Baguio, San Fernando and Dagupan to entertain homes and offices with gay ethnic dances.

As novena, the Misa de Gallo run for nine dawns leading up to the big event of the 25th. The town band does a roundelay of the streets at 3 o’clock in the morning to rouse residents. The tradition is believed to have been brought to the isles by a Spanish friar in the 18th century. The first cock’s-crow masses were heard during the December harvest by thanksgiving farmers for bountiful crops.

Many a fond childhood memory drifts to the cold dawns warmed by puto bumbong, bibingka, steaming salabat and tsokolate served in tiendas, makeshift stalls, at the church patio.

In Leyte and Samar, churchgoers proceed to an assigned house after the Misa to dance till 7 a.m. A host-family feeds the band and guests breakfast of rice cake and other delicacies. The dances cut through social barriers; even the farmhand may hop the curacha with the landlord’s wife. Strictly no liquor, lest they forget the long day’s work ahead.

Three Christmas symbols adorn Filipino homes: the parol, the belen and the American Christmas tree.

Parol-making has evolved into an intricate folk art, using bamboo sticks and papel de japon. In San Fernando, Pampanga, it’s a lavish prestige affair. Clans compete in lantern design, size and splendor. Contributions for the construction of a giant parol can hit P25,000. The lanterns are paraded on flatbed trucks around town on Christmas Eve.

The belen occupies center stage in the sala beneath the Christmas tree. Children express artistic talent arranging and sprucing them up. The belen is usually made of painted plaster of Paris or carved wood. Cheaper cardboard versions adorn less affluent homes.

Christmas trees come in assortments, from rare evergreen to plastic or aluminum foil. Most preferred is agoho, a variety of pine, but in areas where scarce shrubs suffice. Lingayen, Pangasinan folk cut branches from aroo trees at the town plaza for home display. The Christmas tree supposedly began when Saint Boniface dedicated the tannenbaum, Germany’s fir tree, to the Holy Child.

Lantern processions are held at dusk, jamming Christmas Eve traffic, culminating with midnight mass, Misa de Aginaldo. A unique procession is celebrated in Anauayan Island, east of Panay. Fishermen garland bancas with flowers and colored paper for the parada sa baybayan, sea parade. On each boat is a jara, queen, who tosses fruits and blossoms to crowds ashore.

Tagalogs present a street play, Panunuluyan, said to have been introduced from Mexico by 18th-century mariners in Cavite. It reenacts the Holy Couple’s search for shelter on the eve of the Nativity. A pretty maiden and her escort, dressed in saya and barong, wander about town to dramatize the sad Mary-Joseph plight. Four or five houses with front balconies serve as stopovers where the couple pleads in poetry for a place to stay the night. From the balcony a cantora replies “no vacancy” also in poem. Refused shelter, the couple proceeds to the church plaza where stands a kubol, manger, of wood and cloth.

In Malolos, Bulacan, the Virgin riding a donkey is “pregnant” with a pillow inside her dress. In some parts of Bicol, she rides a carosa drawn by a carabao, followed by pastores, little children in white gowns playing castanets. The Catanduanes version of Panunuluyan is called Kagharong. (To be continued)