Highlights
- In Manila, Chef Waya Wijangco-Araos chose to eschew gift-giving to provide noche buena feasts to typhoon Ulysses and flood victims.
- In Sydney, after spending Christmas in the operating room last year, Toni Herrera and husband Jobo Amador are looking forward to having a nice noche buena at home this year.
- Also in Manila, companies are holding private, low-key online Christmas parties, minus the extravagant raffles and buffets.
Around this time, the Christmas festivities would have been full-blown. Christmas decorations light up every street and corner, as carollers belt out their Christmas tunes from door to door. At dawn, early risers and simbang gabi devotees flock to churches to hear mass, then partake in freshly-cooked puto-bumbong or bibingka in nearby makeshift stalls, wafting the cool Christmas air.
Malls and other key establishments create awe-striking events with back-to-back firework displays, Christmas tree-lighting ceremonies, and song and dance numbers. As soon as the “Ber” months arrive, from morning till night, Christmas is felt everywhere you go—from your tita’s house, to the nearby sari-sari store, from the patok jeeps filled with commuters, to the main city highways groaning under the weight of countless Christmas party-goers and shoppers whizzing through the holiday rush.
But this 2020, the double whammy of the pandemic, and torrential typhoons and flooding, seems to dampen the Christmas spirit in the Philippines, where 80% of the population are Catholics and Christmas fanatics.
Is Christmas cancelled?
“To tell you honestly, I don’t feel the Christmas spirit,” says two Pinoys, each based in Manila and Sydney.
Chef Waya Wijangco-Araos is the owner of Gourmet Gypsy Café, a restaurant, and Open Hand School for Applied Arts, a vocational school for young adults with special needs, based in Quezon City, Philippines. Toni Herrera-Amador is a working student based in Sydney, who migrated to Australia late 2019 after marrying her husband, who was working as a cook in a hotel chain.
In an interview with SBS Filipino, both Waya and Toni admit feeling ambivalent about Christmas this year, which is usually a time for merry-making.
“It will be different for many Filipinos. A lot of us lost significant incomes, lost loved ones and homes. It felt a bit off to celebrate when so many people have lost so much,” Waya says, sharing that around this time, she would have been developing Christmas menus and marketing Christmas packages for her customers. Waya confesses, “This time, I couldn't even bring myself to develop holiday products and menus.”
“Instead, we made a noche buena package that people can sponsor for flood-weary families in Marikina and Rizal,” Waya says of their project called Sponsor a Noche Buena this Christmas, of which they have received 200 pledges for flood victims in Marikina. They’re still looking for more pledges to send 100 noche buena packs to Dumagat families in Wawa, Rizal.
Instead of exchange gifts and placing piles upon piles of gifts under Christmas trees, there are a lot of Filipinos like Chef Waya who are eschewing gifts to donate food and clothing to affected Filipino families.
Indeed, it will be a different Christmas, as Filipinos continue to struggle to survive. “It will be simpler, but not less meaningful. It will be a time to recharge, rest, and refill our wellspring of hope,” Waya concludes.
A time to be thankful
In Sydney, Business Management student and part-time hotel gaming assistant, Toni Herrera-Amador, feels the same way. Knowing that Filipinos celebrate Christmas in a grand extravagant manner, she feels the season is profoundly more muted this year. Not only visually, but also in spirit.
She echoes Chef Waya’s sentiment. “It’s no longer about gifts, but about the rebirth of Christ,” Toni says.
“This is a good theme, and Christmas will be about giving everyone hope, at a time like this, where everyone feels down and discouraged,” Toni adds.
Toni herself experienced hopelessness and was at the lowest point in her life, when last year, she and her husband spent their first Christmas together in a hospital in Sydney.
A week before Christmas Eve, her husband was rushed to the emergency room, and diagnosed with cavernoma or spinal injury, causing him to lose his ability to walk. He would then spend the next six months recuperating and rehabilitating in the hospital.
Toni shares, “I couldn’t wrap my head around it that time. My first time in another country. I’m a long way from home. We didn’t have a support system here. Myself I haven’t built my roots yet. It just didn’t make sense.”
And just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, the coronavirus pandemic happened.
Jobo had to stay in the hospital, while Toni tried to figure things out. Jobo’s employer, who was concerned about the couple’s well-being, offered to let Toni stay in a hotel room for free, to help relieve their rent expenses. Toni accepted gratefully.
Toni recalled having sleepless and tearful nights, keeping in touch with her husband and his doctors via video calls, and praying hard for her and her husband’s health and survival. “Sabi ko nga sa husband ko, kay Jobo, malagpasan lang natin ito, I am sure we can deal with anything na i-throw sa atin ng life. (I told my husband, Jobo. If we could surpass this, I am sure we can deal with anything life throws us.)”
This year, with her husband recovering, and walking again, Toni is looking forward to a simple noche buena with her husband in their apartment. Finally, a proper Christmas, where they plan to prepare pansit, baked chicken and the traditional Christmas staple fruit salad.
Though Toni admits that there’s still a sorrowful note to this year’s holiday season, marked by homesickness, weariness, and fear of what’s to come in 2021, she believes there’s still a good reason to celebrate.
“There are a lot of things to be thankful for. Despite everything, buhay pa tayo (we are still alive). May opportunities pa to keep on living, to keep on fighting. Never give up,” Toni says.
Online Christmas
As Toni and her husband look forward to a face-to-face company Christmas party in Sydney, it’s an altogether different tune in the Philippines, where companies are holding their Christmas parties online, amidst a General Community Quarantine (GCQ).
Says freelance events manager and producer Guia Aguinaldo, “They’re doing everything virtually via Zoom. But in a simpler, more private way. There are no big raffle prizes and buffets. Most of them use the budget to donate to the affected families in Marikina, Rizal and Cagayan, and to frontliners.”
This is a far cry from past Christmases, when the events industry is usually at its peak. “This is the time when we are fully booked with events, concerts and company anniversaries,” Guia shares.
The live events industry is among those who were hardest hit by the pandemic, as several parts of the Philippines were locked down, all kinds of gatherings strictly banned, leaving many event professionals with little to no income.
“It was stressful and depressing. Suddenly, all the bookings done even back in 2019 were cancelled. Clients had no choice. But there’s nothing you can do, right? Better safe than sorry. Health is wealth,” Guia narrates.
But around the last few months, clients have been able to adapt and pivot, making online events the new normal.
“I’m happy that little by little, the clients are calling us back, and are asking us to do online events. I’m really glad to be quite busy again, and to go back to what I love doing,” Guia says, adding that colleagues, especially freelancers like her, will at least have some income during Christmas time.
It will be a simple, quiet, and intimate noche buena for most Filipino families, who want this Christmas to be both safe and merry at the same time.
As for friends and extended families, those warm hugs and kisses, potlucks, games, and videoke sessions will have to be postponed.
Celebrating online is the way to go. As Chef Waya says, “Love will translate through screens, and hugs can wait.”
