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Philippines has earned the distinction of celebrating the world’s longest Christmas season when first day of September comes, the “ber” months of the calendar starts, Christmas carols are heard as early as September and the season lasting up until Epiphany. This will continue until a few days before November when Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day will rule but immediately return to making and display of Christmas-themed decorations.

As early as October, shoppers already looking for gift ideas to avoid the Christmas rush. On December, malls, of which the Philippines has so many of, will be filled up with people that locals describe as “di mahulugan ng karayom (can’t drop a needle).” In Metro Manila, traffic will change from bad to worst particularly areas near shopping malls, bazaars and “tiangge,” Divisoria with the stretch of Recto from Avenida transformed into pedestrian-only street swarmed with thousands of shoppers looking for big bargains, off-line ATMs will be commonplace due to low supply of cash particularly on the 15th of December (payday) and release of the mandatory 13th month pay and Christmas bonuses. Taxis will be very hard to flag down due to heavy traffic and volume of passengers.

The Parol is a traditional Filipino Christmas decoration, a five point star-shaped Christmas lantern, originally made of thin bamboo frames and covered with colored cellophane. It has two tails that serve as the rays of the star. Parol reminds the Filipino Christians of the star of Bethlehem that guided the Three Wise Men on their way in search of Baby Jesus.

Making parols is a folk craft, and most Filipino kids have tried their hand at making a parol at one time or another, maybe as a school project or otherwise.

Many parol start to light up places while Christmas trees start to be visible including the traditional large one in Araneta Center, Cubao plus the show at COD Cubao now transferred to Greenhills Shopping Center. Buildings in Makati start to display the belen (nativity scene) while Ayala Avenue will sparkle with Christmas lights like stars a-twinkling. During Christmas season, parols are seen everywhere. As early as November, parols are hang on windows or door of every Filipino homes, offices, schools, shopping malls and even streets are adorned with these multi-colored lanterns. You will even find mini parols hanging on buses and jeepneys and cars. Today, the parol become more colorful because of the twinkling bulbs in dazzling pattern that help illuminates each parol.

The modern parol has taken various designs. The traditional five-sided star geometry is still predominant, but modern parols now have assorted snowflake geometries, and multi-dimensional forms. Some office buildings in Manila form giant stars made of either multi-colored or single-color lights that hang from their rooftops. Some lights cover half of the building. Sometimes the lights cover the entire building. A more common design would be to drop from the roof about six or seven strings of lights shaped like a ray of light that points toward a life-size manger at the ground floor of the building. A giant lighted parol on top of the building, a five-pointed star that gloriously proclaims the birth of our Lord Jesus, is the source of the ray of light.

Christmas Lights and Decors in Philippines

Sources :

http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.backpackingphilippines.com
http://www.myparol.com
http://hubpages.com

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 10:12 am and is filed under Celebrations, Happy Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.