DWP - traditions: prompt

traditions

The one Christmas tradition I like best is the Noche Buena, the midnight "supper" on Christmas eve. In our household, when my five siblings and I were young, our mother would wake us up at midnight to have our Noche Buena. Because we were really poor, she and my father would cook a special meal for us: a whole egg for each child, cooked sunny side up, with a piece of hotdog, fried, and my father's specialty, spaghetti with corned beef sauce. Instead of the cheap margarine, we had on the table half a pack of real butter, and instead of the daily morning rolls, we had a loaf of bread, the one in white plastic bag with colourful circles. The meal was repeated in the morning for breakfast, after we had opened our gifts.

Intead of stockings, we used old socks that each child hung on the Christmas tree (which was a large branch of a tree with lots of twigs in it, leaves pulled out and the branch painted with white, and instead of the shiny Christmas balls, we hung our little toys, then Mother finished it off by tying the multi-coloured lights around it). I can still remember those socks stretched and bulged to the max with the little toys our parents painstakingly wrapped and put inside the socks. In any case, the gifts were little toys, and back then, we never asked what we wanted for toys. Our mother seemed to know which ones we liked.

After breakfast on Christmas Day, Mother dressed us in our new clothes - the only new ones we would have all year - and hauled us all to the church to hear Mass. Then we either walked or took jeepney rides to our relatives' homes, where they have all kinds of special food on their table. Our aunts or uncles would give us money. Of course, there are favourite aunts and uncles, and there are favourite homes where the food was really abundant.

Christmas in Manila was not complete without the carollers. They could be anyone, from a man playing a guitar or a group of young people with really good voices, to an annoying drunkard who just wanted to have more money to buy booze. The unforgettable ones are the group of little children in the neighbourhood, each one clutching an improvised "musical instrument": a makeshift tambourine made of flattened bottle caps (cork underneath removed) and stringed into a wire; a discarded Dole pineapple can for a drum beaten with a little branch from the neighbour's tree; and best one is a comb covered with cellophane from cigarette packs.

These children would sing, mostly desafinado, mostly yelling to make sure they are heard, as there would be other carolers nearby or other loud sounds from other houses, and of course the barking of the dogs. If they didn't get the houseowner to come out to give them "alms", they kept singing in front of the house, until they got money or they got shooed away (some people would throw water at them if they're really bad). After they sang, and they got money, if they didn't have someone in charge of getting all their collections, you'd hear them bickering.

"We should divide it," one says.

"No, the lady gave it to me!"

"Yes, we agreed that we take turns in taking the money."

"It's not fair, you got twenty-five cents and I only got ten!"

"I sing the loudest, I should get more."

"You suck!"

Sometimes a fist fight would settle the matter, and yet, on to the next house they go carolling afterwards.

-o0o-
Other readings on the Christmas theme:

Silent Night

Christmas past 1

Christmas past 2

Christmas past 3

Christmas past 4