Celebrations

My Filipino-Chinese friend started 2002 with the New Year celebrations. Then she celebrated the Chinese New Year with her Tsinoy relatives and friends. Later in the year she happened to be in India during the Hindu Dewali (Diwali or Divali) or festival of lights, so she celebrated that, too, with the Indians. (She loved the flatbreads but didn’t try any food painted with silver.) Then she celebrated Eid-ul Fitr, the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (I’m not sure she did this with Muslims). She swore she even watched out for the appearance of the crescent moon.

She would have celebrated the Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, with the Israelis at their embassy a few weeks back, but the terrible traffic in Makati forced her to miss that one.

Today of course she’s celebrating Christmas. I bet she has pigged out on duck, lamb and the fattest portion of the Christmas ham, after saying grace and praying that she will be able to get rid of all that deadly cholesterol.

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This is Christmas in the time of terror. Even as we celebrate with our loved ones, we wonder what the non-Christian world is doing. The wonderment is vague, like the dull tapping of guilt that we try to dispel when we indulge in sinful pleasures.

Even vague wonder, however, is a great improvement over what it’s been like throughout our lifetime, when we were completely oblivious of the non-Christian world. Whether we admit it or not, this is a legacy of 9/11. After the terror attacks on Sept. 11 last year, many people crammed on Islam 101, throwing in lessons on Judaism, Hinduism and even Buddhism for good measure.

Part of the learning experience is celebrating with members of other faiths. Many Filipinos have of course been celebrating Chinese festivals, offering fruits to the Chinese gods, exchanging moon cakes and tikoy and decorating their homes with images of laughing potbellied Buddhas. I guess the thinking is that if such practices bring prosperity to the Chinese, it could work for Filipinos, too.

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The Dewali (meaning "rows of lighted lamps") is a five-day festival during which Hindus clean their homes thoroughly and open their windows to welcome Laksmi, the goddess of wealth. The goddess is greeted with lighted candles and lamps; feasts are prepared and gifts are exchanged. Does that remind you of Christmas?

A Muslim friend e-mailed me photos of their celebration of Eid-ul Fitr earlier this month, and the scenes also reminded me of Christmas. Muslim children were gathered around a raised platform, where the imam, wearing a flowing white robe, white socks and white cap, distributed toys and other gifts from the Muslim community.

The community gathered for a feast. I’ve learned what "halal" means, the most basic of which is that the slaughterhouse for halal meat must face Mecca and the animal must be killed by hand. The meat must be certified as halal by what I equate with a Muslim meat inspection board. I’ve been told that the huge demand around the globe for halal meat can’t be met.

Halal is similar to the Jewish kosher. A Jewish-American friend told me that before the Islamist problem erupted, Muslims in the United States used to buy food from Jewish stores.

He also told me to make sure I join Jews in their next Hanukkah because it’s a lovely festival. Celebrated near Christmas, the Jewish festival of lights marks Judas Maccabaeus’ victory over Antiochus IV, and the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem in 164 B.C.

Maccabaeus, Antiochus who? Don’t ask me. All I know is what my Jewish friend told me – Hanukkah is their occasion for Christmas-style gift-giving. It’s an eight-day festival. You light one candle on the first day, two on the second, and so on. He said his house nearly burned down from all the candles they lit in the recent Hanukkah.

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For my part I tell my friends abroad about the Filipino Christmas – the longest in the world. I tell them about the pretty lanterns, the magical lights, the different rice cakes during dawn Masses. If you look hard enough, you’ll still find genuine bibingka made of rice flour and baked in banana leaves, and genuine puto bumbong made of pirurutong – that special rice that gives the cake its violet color.

For all our problems we always find a way to make our Christmas merry. This Christmas I’m trying to learn that crazy dance that goes with the Ketchup Song, which has reportedly dislodged from the No. 1 spot rapper Eminem’s theme from his semi-autobiographical movie Eight Mile. In a couple of months we’ll wonder what temporary insanity made us dance to a song about ketchup. Then again, we were also dancing to a song titled Mambo No. 5 in the recent past.

Back in those days of genuine puto bumbong there were still no shopping malls with bomb-sniffing dogs and heavily armed cops and security cameras. Occasionally we went to the Rizal Park with relatives after the noche buena and the traditional exchange of gifts, waiting for the break of a glorious day. And even if it wasn’t Christmas, we attended Mass wearing lovely veils of lace, in our best clothes and well-polished shoes. When did veils become associated only with Muslim women?

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How diverse we are, and yet how similar in many ways. My Jewish friend is fascinated by the idea of what he describes as "eclectic" religious celebrations. I tell my Tsinoy friend, the one who plans to spread this eclectic trend, that she just grabs any excuse to pig out, but she insists she’s doing it in the spirit of religious understanding. Who can argue with that? If we could understand each other better, the world will surely be a more pleasant place.

Whatever our faith, we mostly want to live and love in peace, to celebrate our festivals and light up our homes with candles without worrying about harm befalling those dear to us. If all we have to worry about this Christmas are cholesterol, blood sugar and uric acid, that’s good enough for us.

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May your Christmas be peaceful and bright.