IT’S the week before Christmas Day and despite the continuing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, our people are determined to celebrate the holiday, perhaps not as exuberantly with the revelry of previous years, but with greater reverence and a greater sense of gratitude that we have survived the difficulties of the past months, including the death of so many loved ones.
Christmas lanterns now light the streets of our cities and many homes. They recall those early times in our history when people went to attend the predawn masses of Simbang Gabi, with home-made lanterns to light their way. Christmas lanterns have become part of many Christmas traditions today, including the UP Lantern Parade and the giant lantern competition among barangays of San Fernando, Pampanga.
The original light of Christmas was the star that shone over Bethlehem the night Christ was born. The star‘s rays spread around the small town below, much like the lights of today’s Christmas Tree with its star on top and lights on its branches spreading down to the floor where Nativity Scenes and gifts are arrayed.
Christmas carols are sung this week in churches, in concert halls, and in homes, recalling the night the angels sang to awaken the shepherds watching their flocks by night in the hills of Judea and urge them to go and see the Child in the manger in Bethlehem.
Santa Claus, especially to children in America, is a loved Christmas figure bringing gi s on Christmas Eve. Santa was actually a Greek bishop, St. Nicholas of Myra, a small Roman town in today’s Turkey, who lived around 280 BC. A er Christ was born, St. Nick became known as a bringer of gifts to children, especially in America, where children came to believe he came on his carriage pulled by reindeer flying across the sky to land on rooftops and slide down chimneys to leave gi s for children to open on Christmas Day.
The ultimate image of Christmas, of course, is the Nativity Scene, Jesus lying in a manger, watched by his parents Mary and Joseph, as shepherds and three kings stand by and angels watch from above. Tarlac province has made this an annual competitive event with its Belenismo, featuring Filipino manger scenes in every town of the province.
The country has been under some form of lockdown since March and the end of the pandemic is not in sight. But it is Christmas, the most beloved holiday to Filipinos. We have been looking forward to it since the start of September even amid doubts that full church and other holiday activities could be held because of the pandemic.
Even with the restrictions, old Christmas traditions were carried out, under great limitations due to pandemic protocols. The rules against mass gathering and for face masks and physical distancing remain. But above it all, the spirit of Christmas will prevail in the lanterns and trees, the concerts and carols, the gift giving, and the church rites starting with the Simbang Gabi last Wednesday.
