Christmas is just around the corner. Most of us are busy preparing for this festive season, from Christmas decorations, to gifts and food for that special day. But how many of us still do the Filipino Christmas traditions?
First of all, did you start greeting friends and family on the first of September? Only Filipinos do that. Isn’t it great that we get to celebrate Christmas for 4 months of the year?
As for the decorations, I wonder how many of us have parol, star shaped lanterns, proudly displayed in front of our houses. These are very distinct that when you see them, it’s very obvious that the owners of the house are Filipinos. Another decoration that usually comes out at Christmas time is the Belen, the nativity scene. Be it small or big, they’re usually the centerpiece of all the decorations.
Filipinos are music lovers that it will not be the Christmas season unless there are Christmas carols. You can hear this in the pipe music of the shops, children going house to house singing happy carols while jingling their handmade tambourines, or something like it. And, not to forget our favourite OPM, original pinoy music, Christmas songs sung during our karaoke parties.
For Catholics, there’s the dawn or night masses (simbang gabi or misa de gallo) for 9 consecutive days before Christmas. It is common belief that if one completes the 9 day novena, their prayer will be granted. Thankfully, more and more churches are now doing this, compared to years ago. And there’s the Christmas Eve mass, held as close as possible to midnight hours before Christmas, is probably the most attended mass of the whole year. It is actually such a great idea here in Australia as Christmas is in summer. Going to mass at this time is much cooler than during the day.
Another tradition Filipinos look forward to is the Noche Buena where we have the best food after the Christmas Eve mass to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. This is the time of the year where we treat ourselves to our favourite food even though they may be a little bit expensive or tricky to make. A couple of favourites are bibingka and puto bumbong. Unfortunately, it can be stressful to the cooks of the house. We want to please everyone and make everything perfect.
And then of course we have the Aguinaldo, or gift giving, the favourite part of most, if not all, children. And these days, to minimise the expenses, we prioritise giving gifts to the little ones, after all, it already makes us so happy seeing the children happy. Exchange of gifts between friends, work mates, classmates are very common during Christmas parties. Sometimes you get gifts that you like, and sometimes, you don’t. But it is usually just for fun, so it doesn’t really matter.
Whatever tradition we grew up in or what we do now, they all form part of who we are and who we will be the next generation. These are the things that make our Christmas special. But, even to the simplest of celebrations, the main thing is that we are all gathered with the people we love the most, the most important part of our lives.
