Christmastide starts today with simbang gabi

In the Philippines, Christmastide starts today – December 16 – and ends on the now movable feast of the Three Kings. The Christmas novena is celebrated with the simbang gabi a thoroughly Filipino Christmastide celebration. We say thoroughly Filipino because it is only in the Philippines that Christmastide opens with the nine-day series of night masses. It happened that the novena Masses that preceded Christmas fell during the rice harvest season. The farmers had to be out in the fields by dawn to collect their harvest. So the novena Masses were celebrated before dawn to allow the farmers not to be late for work. After the pre-dawn Masses, there is always a breakfast celebration. That actually is the harvest home celebration. So the harvest celebration and Yuletide novena were actually blended into one.

In other parts of the world, Christmastide starts during Christmas itself and extends up to either the Epiphany or New Year. So we have one of the longest Christmastides in the whole world. It used to be 21 days, but with the Epiphany now commemorated on the first Sunday of January that does not coincide with the New Year, it now varies from 17 to 22 days. But it is the simbang gabi that really gives our Christmastide a purely Filipino touch.

Most people living in big cities still go to the simbang gabi. But they don’t know why the Mass is being celebrated before dawn. If you will go by logic, the simbang gabi should not be practiced in urbanized areas. But tradition dies hard and people follow tradition without questioning why.

During the Spanish period, gifts were not exchanged during Christmas. Christmas presents were presented during the Feast of the Three Kings to commemorate the gifts that the Magi gave to the infant Jesus – gold as a symbol of royalty; frankincense, as a token of divinity and myrrh, in prophetic allusion to the persecution unto death which awaited the "Man of Sorrows". Later the Magi were said to the Three Kings and were given the names Melchor, Gaspar and Balthazar. All three were supposed to be from Cologne and the Cathedral there claim their relics. One institution that preserves our Three Kings tradition is the Casino Español. Every year, three members of the Casino ride out in the streets of Manila to distribute gifts to poor children.

Now, Christmas gifts are associated with Santa Claus and his figure has replaced the crib as the central Christmas emblem. And Christmas itself has been reduced to a pagan holiday. Actually Santa Claus is a contraction of Santa Nikolaus (St. Nicholas), the patron saint of German children. His feast day is December 6. From Germany, the Santa Claus Christmas figure was introduced to England about 1840. Santa Claus is the American contribution to our Christmas celebration.