Pinoy Pasko, our longest fiesta
September is welcomed nationwide as the official start of the Philippine Christmas season. The countdown begins. Radio stations and TV commercials start playing Christmas jingles, malls and homes start setting up Christmas decorations.
Tourists may find this either amusing or bizarre, but for everyday Filipinos, this is just part of the normal cycle of our year. It is the “ber” months, after all.
Yes, Pasko is a Western import, from colonial Spain’s Christianity. But it can be said that Pasko has been adapted well, by us, to our own panlasa.
It is, uniquely, a “Paskong Pinoy.”
The Filipino values of an early Christmas
It is said that we Filipinos celebrate Christmas the longest, so it would be interesting to reflect on why.
Pasko is pistahan, pakain, and pamilya. The endless Christmas parties everywhere are excuses for us to spend more time with each other.
An early Pasko also allows us to plan when and how we will get home to our probinsya, to spend time with our families. How many more Christmases do we have with our loved ones, anyway?
If we are lucky, a good life will at least have 50 Christmases together. That may not feel like enough, but we make up for it by extending Christmas season, in very much the same way that we tend to linger with our barkada, hours after lunch is over, and way past dark.
Our long Christmases feel like a pleasant, nationwide excuse to connect and spend time with loved ones.
Christmas of childhood
When I was much younger, the parol lights were brighter and warmer. Children, myself included, would go house to house and sing carols. If the homeowner gives us money or candies, we sing: “Tenkyu, tenkyu, ambabait ninyo, tenkyu!” And if they do not, “…ambabarat ninyo, tenkyu!”
I just realized that I have not heard caroling children for years now. Singing groups still go around, but villages are stricter now, I suppose. And maybe it is just the declining quality of lightbulbs these days, but I do miss how bright and hopeful the streets used to look when the “ber” months roll in.
Also, I do not see boys or girls sell lanterns on the streets anymore. I do not even see children playing outside as often as we did many years ago.
I do not want to become one of those “Noong bata ako…” people, but I just wish children today still experience the same wonder. Although maybe, as a trentahin, I am just yearning for the simplicity of my own childhood.
But I should not be worried. Children will always experience wonder.
What has not changed
The commercialism of Christmas is not new—Christmas sales, gift-giving, trendy disposable decorations, Santa Claus figurines, new Pasko-themed music albums, and so on. Business have always made the most out of our values.
Underlying all that glitter and glamor is the generosity of love. It does not matter whether or not we can afford luxurious gifts. What we can afford is time, something that is always spent well when well-spent with people we love.
We start our Christmas season, three months before Christmas Day. It may seem excessive if we do not care about it. We can dismiss it as some outdated colonial thing. But the fact that we do it year after year—and enjoy it, too—shows that there is something about this season that means a lot to us as a culture. It has become Filipinized, in the best way.
Ang Pasko ay pistahan, pakain, at pamilya.
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