How We Celebrate Christmas in the Philippines

     Christmas is the most awaited season of the predominantly Catholic Philippines because it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. What is unique about Philippine Christmas is that it commences in September until early January the following year. Early signs of the Yuletide Season are the Christmas lights that adorn, not only inside private homes, but also outside where competitions as to the most beautifully decorated homes are held. Of course, commerce is at its peak, when early shopping for gifts are encouraged by concerned entrepreneurs. The best part of spending Christmas season is spending it with family. Since our parents are still alive and kicking, my siblings make it a point to spend Christmas Day in our family home in Laguna. Celebrations in the Philippines are mostly done over food, gift-giving, taking each other’s pictures and updating each other with the latest happenings.

               Food. I read somewhere that in the Philippines, we say Hi, by saying “Kain na tayo.” In English, “Let’s eat.” When I am home, I take charge of preparing the food. Sometimes, we have our food catered, but lately, I noticed that I have been doing the cooking. This is because our food choices remained the same all these years. And I have mastered cooking their favorites (below).

Photo of  our Christmas spread.

 Some of the favorite dishes of the family (below).

Upper L-R: Chicken pastel, Turbo Chicken; Lower L-R: Chicken Lollipop, Coconut heart.

Upper L-R: Sweet and Sour Grouper, Fried Tilapia;
Lower L-R: Grilled Tilapia, Shrimp with coconut milk.

     Kris Kringle. The essence of Christmas is gift giving, sharing what we have to the ones that we love, specially, to the kids. To make sure that even adults receive gifts, we have made it a point to choose our Kris Kringle, our manito/manita, our baby. Sometimes we randomly pick our ‘Kringle’ on the day itself, sometimes, we randomly pick the names of our ‘Kringle’ for next year, but the best so far, is to pick our Kringle a few months before Christmas. This way, there is time to carefully select the best gift at a given budget. 

Photo of our Christmas gift giving.

     Souvenir pictures.  Another mainstay in our Christmas celebration is picture-taking. This is a must to have souvenirs of our family Christmas and to have a record of people that were present and those who were not because attendance changes each year, specially, for some cousins, nephews and nieces.

Photo of some family members last Christmas.

     With everybody satiated with laughter and gifts, it is time to go back to where they came from, their own homes where more Yuletide foods await them and more gifts need to be opened. What is constant is that everybody will come back next Christmas for that once-a-year reunion with family and relatives. See you next Christmas everybody!!!