December marks start of the Christmas season

To mark its official start of the Christmas season, the city of Manila unveiled a 30-foot high and 15- foot wide Christmas tree right in front of the City Hall. In Makati, Mayor Jejomar Binay announced that this year, in lieu of putting up Christmas lights and decorations, the city will feed the poor and hungry this Christmas season. It’s all in the spirit of Christmas.

The oldest Philippine Christmas story antedates Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol by a full century and it is a true story. On December 23, 1747, the galleon from Mexico Nuestra Señora de Begona arrived in the Port of Cavite. The freight had a box for Don Santiago Orendain who lived in Intramuros. But the box was delivered to the wrong residence where a riotous noche buena celebration was being held. The guests insisted on seeing the contents of the aguinaldo or Christmas gift. When they opened the box, what they saw was a head that had been severed from its body. They all cried "murder!" and got rid of the box leaving it in the house of a doctor who lived in front. The doctor was as shocked to see the contents of the box. After attending the Misa de Gallo, he and a friend transferred the box to the house of a notorious usurer. As soon as the usurer saw the contents of the box, he concluded that since he had so many enemies who owed him money, one of them or all of them together wanted to get him into trouble. The usurer had a pretty niece who was in love with a young lawyer. The usurer was objecting to their marriage because the lawyer was poor. He consulted the lawyer and the lawyer, after reading the Latin inscription on the box agreed to take full responsibility if and only if the usurer would withdraw his objections to his marrying the usurer’s niece.

When everybody left, the lawyer lifted the contents of the box. It was a life-size statue of the decapitated St. John the Baptist. The lawyer received a reward from the true owner of the image and married the usurer’s niece. This could be the classic Filipino Christmas story.

Even Christmas traditions change with the times. The classic song The Twelve Days of Christmas no longer applies today. This is because the 12th day of Christmas became a movable feast. The Christmas season always ended with the Feast of the Three Kings. The Vatican made that a movable feast that we celebrate on the first Sunday of January that does not coincide with the New Year. So Christmastide sometimes ends on the 8th day of January.

The true Filipino Christmas touch is our Simbang gabi. Christmastide coincided with the harvest season. The farmers had to harvest their crops at the crack of dawn. So the novenary pre-Christmas Masses were held at four in the morning. And so strong is tradition that even today, people in Metro Manila observe the Simbang gabi although they are not farmers.