A Filipino Christmas Tree

One of the important highlights of this merry season is a beautiful Christmas tree. In some societies, the Christmas tree even surpasses the popularity of the Nativity Scene as a symbol of Christmas, because it traverses religious boundaries and becomes a common sign of the season for everyone of all faiths.

It follows, therefore, that those who plan to set up this tree of colors and of lights carefully choose what kind of tree to have, and just how they’re going to decorate it. Most preferred are trees that are dark to blush-green in color, with graceful branching and excellent cone-shaped foliage. But this kind of tree might be too foreign-looking for the local home, or too hard to find or too expensive.

There’s a nice, alternative Christmas tree; very Filipino, very available and affordable. It abounds in hilly areas where the regular crops like corn and tobacco cannot be grown. The rocky hillsides that are covered in moss and maguey are where to find it—it’s actually the flower stalk of ageing maguey plants.

A good stalk stands regally up to seven feet tall, slender and sleek. There are notches, at a right distance of each other, where twigs extend out neatly around the stalk, usually 1½ feet long at the lower part and getting smaller at every point upwards. There are no leaves or petals; the thing actually looks like a skeletal tree.

The tree is bare enough for your creativity to play. You can make it stand in a box, filled with dry sand to hold it firmly. Kapok or doldol, the local alternative to cotton flakes, will make very nice snow-like decorations on every twig tip. Loops of multicolored paper strips can be made into a chain to hang around the tree.

To add more glitter, native candies (coconut, ube, banana or langka) individually wrapped in cellophane of different colors can be hung all over the tree, using dyed abaca strings. It is certain to add to the appeal of the tree, especially with small children. The only thing, though, is to make sure the ants don’t get to the sweets on the tree.

Spray insect repellent on the tree base, and see to it that no part of the tree touches the walls or anything that may link crawling insects to the tree. If you use moss to cover the base, dry the moss thoroughly first before putting it on. Moisture can attract insects and encourage the growth of unwanted organisms.

Look around the house for more things to decorate your native Christmas tree with. Flowers, flattened and dried between pages of a book, may be nice to add, too. For lighting, candles safely placed in glasses and arranged around the foot of the tree can have a very unique, dramatic effect.

Many of us will surely find the idea of a Filipino Christmas tree truly interesting. It is always fulfilling to be one with the whole world in celebrating this joyous season - yet probably all the more when we try to make it into some-thing our very own.