Rice cake and binggala for Christmas

I still remember how simple our preparation for the Christmas season then. As early as September when we start to hear Christmas songs played on the radio, we started to look for materials to fashion into Christmas décors. We let our friend who is courageous enough to climb coconut trees to get “ginit” and coco twig which hold the buko. We made the twig as Christmas tree wrap in a cigarette foil to give it a silvery look. Or we sometimes leave it as it is to give it a native look but put a cone-shaped cigarette foil on the twig’s tip instead. To add more décor on our tree, we assemble the cigarette silver foil into a chain and hang it around the tree. We don’t have a “series” then, the name we used to call an electric Christmas light.

Another version of our Christmas tree was made of padada branches. A padada is another local term for bakhaw or mangrove tree. We get the tip of the padada during low tide near the Tago River. We then shred off the leaves and excess branches of the padada. To make it look more contemporary, we put white bubbles on its branches to make it like a snow. We produced the snow-like bubbles by mixing a blue detergent bar Perla with small quantity of salt and amount of water in a pale. By continued process of mixing salt, water and bubbles of the detergent, the bubbles will eventually looks like snow. The snow could last until after the Three Kings celebration. Its longevity, however, depends on the quality of the mix. And I had perfected its process.

The usual parol or star we have was made of a bamboo stick and wrap in clear colored plastic. This was usually what we bring to school before the Christmas break to decorate our classroom. And there was always the implied drive to outdo our classmates’ parol. The design became intricate as we grow older. The best parol designs are mostly those made from native materials. The ginit, a leathery part of the coconut tree, is usually the material used. Some used palay and corn grains; other used beans, coconut husk and corn skins as their parol’s wrapper.

And the food for Noche Buena and Medya Noche? Many people referred to it as the food poor people can only afford to prepare. But I am proud to say they were our usual preparation during these feasts. The affluent people in our community usually have spaghetti, macaroni salad, leche plan, gulaman, maja blanca and a variety of cakes during the festivities.  My lola and mama only prepares puto, bibingka, steamed kalibre, bodbod sa lukay, biko and bodbod na kalibre o kamote for us to share during the Noche Buena and Medya Noche. We only knew the taste of spaghetti, macaroni, gulaman, maja blanca and cake if our neighbors gave us some. Ang sarap pala! And we always long for the Christmas season to come so we could taste it again.

After I started to earn a living, I had it with me to prepare and buy what we all long for on our table every holiday season celebration. We already have more spaghetti, macaroni and the like every year. We don’t have the bodbod (suman), biko, puto, etc that we used to have.