MANILA: As soon as September comes around, music segments on Philippine radio channels fill with Christmas songs, which echo throughout public spaces — from malls to filling stations.
Colorful decorations with the parol — a star-shaped lantern representing the Star of Bethlehem and one of the most iconic symbols of Filipino Christmas — begin to pop up outside homes, in streets and public buildings.
Early Christmas sales and special promotions draw crowds to shopping centers, as people in one of the largest Catholic-majority countries embark on their four-month-long preparations to commemorate the birth of Jesus.
Br. Clifford Sorita, sociology lecturer at the University of the City of Manila, links the tradition to the official countdown, which starts on Sept. 16 and covers the months ending in “ber” until Christmas Day.
“Filipinos start the Christmas Celebration during the ‘ber’ months because the 100-day Christmas countdown normally occurs during this time and, as such, is part of our psycho-social preparations for the Christmas season,” he told Arab News.
