How Filipinos Celebrate Christmas

The longest celebration of  the Christmas season, is said to be here in the Philippines. Christmas is indeed the most wonderful and most awaited time of the year both by kids and adults. Once the first day of the “BER” months is reached, Christmas songs start to play religiously on radio stations. Christmas lights and decors are up as early as October. Houses, business establishments and even city roads are adorned with festive Christmas lanterns that look like twinkling  reachable real stars at night.

Gifts on Christmas day
Gifts on Christmas day

As early as November, most of us are busy buying Christmas gifts for our family, relatives, co-workers and friends. Yes, Filipinos are known to be generous individuals despite of the financial crisis surfacing our economy. There’s always a wrapped gift for our godchildren on Christmas day. It doesn’t matter if the gift is lucrative or not, what is important is the thought that we are remembered and something is specially and personally prepared for us.

We spent Christmas eve in my grandmother’s house. On our way to Antipolo, we saw a jib crane on the street side. There was no traffic congestion and we were able to arrive in roughly 10 minutes. My grandmother served sumptuous food that night. We also brought Japanese platter that I ordered from our neighbor. I also gave our gifts to my grandmother, aunties, and cousins. It was indeed a fun night catching up with my paternal relatives.

My family's picture during Noche Buena
 Noche Buena in my grandmother’s place in Antipolo.

After dinner, we went straight to the church to attend Misa De Gallo. Misa De Gallo, a known part of Filipino Christmas tradition,  is the mass celebrated on Christmas eve attended by Filipino families to rejoice the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Then, we headed home and had midnight snack with my in-laws.

On Christmas day, we only stayed at our place the whole day and went out around 6:00 PM with my family. We visited Policarpio St. in Mandaluyong and Meralco Liwanag Park. I’ll share about these on my upcoming blog posts soon.

My Family on Christams Day
My Family on Christmas Day

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And, we, Filipinos, celebrate it to the fullest with our family by attending Simbang Gabi, Misa De Gallo, gift-giving, hosting dinner and parties, and visiting vacation spots and theme parks from the start of the “ber” months up to the celebration of “Three Kings”.

 

 

 

7 comments
  1. Philippines is truly have the longest Christmas Celebration. I miss this so much, celebrating Christmas with the family.

  2. oh, how i miss celebrating Christmas with my family and friends in the Philippines. I went to a Christmas Filipino party here in US but nothing beats the essence of being at home.

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