1st misa de aginaldo was before Magellan

But of course Christmas is happy this year, as four out of every five poll respondents say. It was happy last year just as it was a decade ago, it will be happy next year and a century hence. Never mind that five million Filipinos have no jobs, that crime is on the rise, or that leaders do nothing but play politics. Only three out of every hundred feel misery in this season of merriment. Filipinos have this obsession with it.

Christmas in the Philippines is the longest in the world. It officially starts with the first misa de gallo or cockcrow mass on December 16, and ends with the Feast of the Three Kings on the first Sunday of January. But Filipinos start playing carols and shops roll out Yuletide promos as early as the first "ber" month, September. The partying, greeting and gift-giving last till January 6, when they wearily return to their workaday lives. There’s just no stopping the celebration until Filipinos are good and ready.

Christmas, Pinoy-style, is also the world’s merriest. Homes light up with colorful bulbs and parol (lanterns). Schools and offices organize gift exchanges between mo-nitos and monitas. Exclusive subdivisions and sleepy barrios come alive with all-night parties. Rich clans splurge on reunions or homecomings to the province. Poorer ones serve up beef and pork, a respite from the usual boiled rice or instant noodles, for the all-mportant noche buena on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, kids get up early to open their presents, don their newest clothes, and hie off to ninong and ninang for the ritual mano po in exchange for aginaldo of crisp new peso bills.

Behind the fun and spending, the hangovers and overeating, the Pinoy Christmas remains a religious event rooted in superstition and tradition. The misa de gallo is the nine-day dawn novena in preparation for the big event of the 25th. The novena is for thanksgiving and repentance so devotees can meet Christmas Day with a pure heart.

The tradition is believed to have been brought to the islands by a Spanish friar in the early 18th century. The dawn masses were heard by thanksgiving farmers for the December harvest.

In many towns, the misa is also a community affair. The municipal band would do a roundelay of the streets, rousing people from sleep and ushering them to church. After the mass, the townsfolk gather at nearby tiendas to breakfast on piping hot salabat or tsokolate with suman, bibingka, tamales and puto bumbong.

In Leyte and Samar, churchgoers proceed to an assigned house after the misa to dance up to 7 a.m. The host family feeds the band and guests rice cakes and other delicacies. The affairs break social barriers, and even the lowliest peasant may dance the curacha with the landlord’s wife. Liquor is strictly not served, lest the guests forget the long day’s work ahead.

Aside from the American-introduced Christmas tree, two Yuletide symbols adorn Filipino homes: the parol or star that guided the Magi to the Nativity scene of the belen. Parol-making and belen-design evolved from an intricate folk art into an expensive yearly competition. Gas stations, Makati buildings, San Fernando barangays in Pampanga spend tens of thousands of pesos to put up giant lanterns and awesome creches – for prizes less than half of the cost.

Christmas trees come in all assortments, from plain cardboard to the rare evergreen. Time was when Manilans would order pine trees from Baguio or Tagaytay. Pine cutting is now banned; authorities discourage it too because the drying pine needles can catch fire from heated lightbulbs. As a custom, people in Lingayen would cut branches from the aroo trees at the plaza for their homes.

The practice of displaying Christmas trees is said to have started from Saint Boniface, who dedicated the Tannenbaum, the German fir, to the Holy Child.

Christmas Day is presaged by the solemn misa de aginaldo on the eve. Lantern processions usually precede the mass. In Anauayan Island east of Panay, the procession is in the form of a parada sa baybayan or sea parade. Fishermen deck their bancas with garlands of flowers and multicolored papel de hapon. Each boat has a jara (queen) who lobs fruits at onlookers ashore, in the spirit of sharing.

In Tagalog areas, the procession is mixed with the panunuluyan, a street play reenacting the Holy Couple’s search for a place to stay the night of the Nativity. The town’s prettiest maiden and an escort, dressed in robes and riding on mules, would make a round of the streets dramatizing the sad Mary-Joseph plight. By prearrangement, they stop by four or five houses with balconies fronting the street. They plead in poetic languange to be let in, and cantores would reply also in verse that there’s no vacancy. The Holy Couple would end up at the kubol or manger at the church yard.

After the misa de aginaldo, the Filipino family partakes of the noche buena with superstitious solemnity. Prayers are recited in thanksgiving for their solidarity, health and prosperity. In some Tagalog areas, rich relatives shower coins which guests gather for good luck.

The first Christmas is said to have been celebrated in the Philippines 200 years before Magellan came. Accounts vary in dates, placed anywhere between 1280 and 1320. Padre Odoric, a Franciscan from Perdenone, Italy, fled to the Far East with a handful of compatriots. Again accounts vary if they set out on a mission of conversion or fled persecution in Europe. But the story goes that Padre Odoric’s group passed by the islands on the way back to Italy from eight years of travels. They landed on December 25 in Pangasinan, where the natives menacingly surrounded them with wooden bows, arrows and lances. The natives soon realized they meant no harm and that the black cross that Padre Odoric carried was not a weapon after all. They mingled and communicated with the white men. Whereupon the priest proceeded to celebrate Mass.

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