Noche Buena: How to live it up at a time like this

by Pao Vergara, Manila Bulletin

SIMPLENG HANDAAN The essence of Christmas is being together and celebrating new life (Rhes Victorio)

Given the times we live in, an economy in recession, a future that’s ever uncertain, a virus that’s finishing the alphabet, it might be impractical or downright insulting to even consider pursuing luxury.

“Check your privilege,” the young and woke will tell you, and rightfully, agreeably so. Even Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto, when pressed by a rival for something along the lines of “removing the Christmas spirit” for not decorating the city with the usual embellishments, simply said that there were more pressing concerns, all as residents came to his defense posting about the Noche Buena packages they had received.

And yet luxury lifestyle continues to be an aspiration. Haute jewelry, cuisine, travel, experiences, and the channels that feed that aspiration toward these thunder on despite all the uncertainty around.

Elite. Luxury. Rich. Words that were once aspirational in decades past are now seen with wariness, condescension, and even dismissal by a majority whose salaries are still stuck in 1990.

There was a time religious puritanism shunned luxury, and this was followed by the promise of industrial secularization and wealth and comfort for more, which saw the above as old-fashioned. Now, a different social consciousness is permeating—It’s critical of excess, doubtful of trickle-down economics, but led more by social scientists, bloggers, and pundits than by clergy.

Is there still space for luxury? Can your space be luxurious? Maybe luxury won’t disappear, but maybe we can rethink and redefine it.

Luxury is about more, it is about decadence, but that more, that decadence, isn’t necessarily bling, it isn’t necessarily about being crazy, filthy rich. Perhaps it’s about that effort to be extra, that effort to dazzle with what’s available, that effort to make not just a campfire but a lightshow with the kindle on-hand.

Luxury isn’t exclusively based on economic class, although, true to its nature, only a few attain it. But this this time, it’s dependent on effort, not birthright. Luxury is reached by those brave enough to be creative, to make more with what little is there.

It’s exclusive to those who, despite whatever hardships, still choose to celebrate life. Luxury is creativity. In the absence of Moet, it’s milk tea built from scratch. In the absence Cebu spring pig lechon, it’s Pinoy samgyeop put together from the palengke. It’s celebrating with who’s there while grieving for those who aren’t.

It’s going the extra mile to add flavor within one’s means. This kind of luxury can be captured in the Filipino word ginhawa, which evokes coziness, safety, a space in which to relax and enjoy oneself. You’re not just surviving, you’re thriving. Our tribal ancestors chose their leaders not based on who had the most resources, but who brought the most ginhawa to the community. As the Baguio heritage museum puts it, it was elitism, but consensual elitism.

The years 2020 and 2021 have been stressful enough for us collectively. This year looks to be a pivotal time for the nation. We may have been diligent in washing our hands and wearing masks, but too much soap causes dryness and “behind the mask,” TWICE sings, “I wonder if you’re smiling?”

Already, The New York Times has reported the rising incidence of COVID-related anxiety and depression, but we know that already. As the economy reopens and people tentatively come together, each of us is (re)discovering what it means to be among others, with all the hiccups that may entail.

Are we to shame people or, worse, ourselves for trying to add spice, color, and flavor to life?

So! Luxury. Yeah. That word. That experience. You’ve been fighting hard, and you’ve been fighting good, and you’ve been fighting the good fight.

So treat yourself. Treat those you love. Savor that Noche Buena, even if the queso de bola is improvised. You don’t just deserve it. You’ve earned it. Even Jesus turned water into wine.

Nothing can ever cancel Christmas in this country

by AA Patawaran, Manila Bulletin

Whatever happened to Father Christmas in England in 1647 would never happen in the Philippines, no matter how dire the circumstances get—poverty, disaster, a bank run, a civil war, or a revolution.

In 1647, right after the English Civil War and the Church of England gave way to a Presbytarian system, the English parliament passed an ordinance declaring festivities over Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun a taboo, outlawing decorations, celebrations both public and private, and even shops closing up in observance of holy days.

As a result, though all of the kingdoms of England, which at the time included Wales and Ireland, were up in arms, Father Christmas who, as the Paris Review described him, was once “rotund from indulgence,” embodying “Christmas as an open-hearted festival of feasts and frolics,” grew “skinny, mournful, and lonely, depressed by the grim fate that had befallen the most magical time of year.”

…hens and chickens were saying noisy farewells amid the rapid clatter of knives and chopping blocks and the sputtering of lard in frying pans. There was a promise of good eating in the succulent smells of stews and sweetmeats that reached out to the streets. —El Filibusterismo, Jose Rizal

Or he might have migrated to the Philippine islands, whose Christianization by their Spanish colonizers in the 1700s was well under way. Noche Buena (Nochebuena back in the day, one word, as it still is, referring to the Christmas Eve dinner, in Spain) is Spanish for “a night of goodness,” but Noche Buena traces its roots to the early mornings, shortly after midnight, when the Filipinos broke their Christmas Eve fast.

Back then, as ordered by the Spanish friars, it was customary—if not mandatory—to go on a fast the whole day on Christmas Eve. In this writer’s humble opinion, it was in honor of the struggles of the Holy Family to look for a suitable place for the Christ Child to be born in. Alas, there was no room at the inn, so Jesus was born in a manger filled with hay, a long, open trough for horses or cattle to eat from in the cold, smelly stables.

Before they could break their fast, the Filipinos under over 300 years of Spanish occupation, would end the day at the Misa de Gallo, and you can imagine how famished they must have been that even the sacramental bread must have tasted to them like manna from heaven or like cake from Marie Antoinette. But then the mass would be over, and the fast was ended, and it was time to eat at last.

Hence, the Noche Buena. And maybe this is why, just outside the church, anywhere across the Philippines, where a Catholic stone church stood, which then—as now—meant every town, the churchgoers, emerging from the midnight mass, or even the early morning masses of Simbang Gabi, and keen on satiating their day-long hunger and their enormous appetites, would expect stalls and kiosks peddling bibingka, puto bumbong, puto with tsokolate, kutsinta, biko, palitaw, and suman.

These rice cakes, although they carry traces of our foreign interactions on the trade routes of our pre-colonial past, whether in terms of techniques or transplanted ingredients, are our very own contribution to the celebration of Christmas steeped in tradition and cultural significance. All the carbs waiting on the churchyards after the night masses of Yuletide in the Philippines would have been enough to keep Father Christmas happy-plump and rosy-cheeked despite the Puritan revolution of the 17th century, not to mention less depressed because, you know, carbs boost the brain’s release of serotonin, the chemical that keeps us calm and satisfied.

But there is more to the Philippine Christmas feast than the stuffed turkey, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and sage, and roast potatoes Father Christmas was familiar with in the United Kingdom, of which we might have had a taste in the 20 months the British occupied the Philippines from 1762 to 1764.

Ours is a hodgepodge of influences drawn from over three centuries of Spanish rule, the hold the Americans have had—still do?—over us since 1898, when Spain sold us to them for only $120 million, and, long before we were named the Philippines after Spain’s King Philip II, centuries worth of trade and cultural exchanges with the Arabs, the Chinese, the Indians, the Javanese, the Japanese, and more. 

Mementos of our major colonial experiences with the Spanish and the Americans still find their way to our Christmas celebrations. From Spain, the Filipinos have incorporated the likes of jamon de bola, stuffings like relleno, embutido, galantina, and morcon, lechon or cochinillo, lengua, callos, chorizo, paella, and the ubiquitous queso de bola or Dutch Edam cheese, a staple on vessels sailing on world expeditions across uncharted waters, such as the Magellan flotilla and the Spanish galleon. The Americans, in turn, threw in pies, Spam, Vienna sausage, and fruitcake.  The Noche Buena table on every Filipino home is a journey across the world, packed with history and the forging and cutting of ties between nations.

But there are also regional variations within the Philippines. Bibingka, for instance, has many variants, such as bibingkang Mandaue that, unique to Mandaue, Cebu, was traditionally made with tuba to give it a kick. In Cavite, it is called bibingkoy, which comes with a filling of sweetened mongo and served with langka, sago, and coconut cream. In Davao, there is durian bibingka and, in Eastern Samar, what they call salukara is bibingka in the shape of a pancake.

There are many kinds of suman too, such as black rice suman from Baler, Aurora, suman sa lihiya in Laguna, suman moron in Leyte, and suman budbud in Dumaguete. In Pangasinan, it’s called tupig and in Bulacan pinipig and, in Cebu, it is best eaten with ripe mangoes.

The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,641 islands and many regions boasting of their own unique cultures, geophysical traits, and resources. Coupled with the influx of colonial influences as well as the yields of the Filipino diaspora scattered all over the planet, all that find expression not only in Fiipinos’ day-to-day living, but especially in occasions important to us, like Christmas.

Father Christmas should have learned an important lesson in 1647. Although it had been a dismal failure, they did cancel Christmas in the UK and they can attempt to do so again, as they have in other places in the world.

In the Philippines, however, nothing can stop Christmas, not a pandemic like this one that we have been grappling with for two years, not even all the health bulletins warning against obesity and excessive eating.

Nothing at all can ever cancel Christmas in the Philippines.

Lessons from the Visitation

By Fr. Roy Cimagala *

          THE gospel of the 4th Sunday of Advent this year (Year C)

tells us of the many precious lessons we can learn from that beautiful

episode of Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth soon after she learned

that she was going to be the mother of the Son of God and that her

aging and barren cousin was already heavy with child in her womb.

(cfr. Lk 1,39-45)

          In that gospel episode, it is mentioned that Mary went “in

haste.” It is an example worth emulating by everyone, for it is

clearly what is proper to us. A truly good person, a holy one so close

and identified with God, would be quick to serve everybody else,

because that is simply the expression of love. Love is always a matter

of deeds and service, and not just sweet words and good intentions.

          This eagerness to serve would really identify us with Christ

who is our “way, truth and life.” He being God became man to save us,

the greatest service anyone can do. And all throughout his earthly

life, serving was the constant rule that he followed. He was always at

the beck and call of anyone who had need of something.

          Definitely, to be able to serve, one has to be humble. And

that’s what we see in our Lady, and of course, in Christ, first of

all. Pride and all its allies would always extinguish any desire to

serve others. They only are interested in serving their own selves.

          We need to humble ourselves so that we can serve everyone,

and not just those whom we like. We have to serve even those whom we

don’t like and who may not like us. If we are truly humble, our spirit

of service would not make any discrimination among the people. We

would serve everyone, whether they deserve to be served or not.

          A Christian and Marian spirit of service would neither give

rise in us to a certain sense of entitlement and privilege because of

whatever claim of authority or superiority we may have over others.

          While it’s true that we obviously are entitled to our

rights, we should not feel entitled to privileges and favors that are

above our rights and needs. If they come and we cannot avoid them,

then let’s be thankful.

          But let’s be reminded that these privileges, favors and

blessings are meant for us to strengthen our desire to serve and not

to be served. But as it is, we should try to avoid them, since they

tend only to spoil and corrupt us.

          We have to be most wary when we happen to enjoy some

privileged positions or status in life because we tend to think that

we deserve more entitlements. And not only would we expect them. We

may even demand them for us.

          Remember what Christ said once: “Be careful not to practice

your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do,

you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Mt 6,1)

          We need to acquire the mentality of a servant which is

actually the mentality of Christ himself. Let us readjust our human

standards to conform to what is actually proper to us as taught and

lived by Christ. We usually look down on the status of servants. This

has to change! We should be convinced that by becoming a servant we

would be making ourselves like Christ. Let’s say NO to entitlements.

* Chaplain Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com