There’s no doubt that we Filipinos celebrate Christmas the longest in the whole world. It’s the only holiday, except Valentine’s Day, when we go all out.
And Valentine’s is only for one day. Our Christmas day is for four months.
We pull all the stops when it comes to celebrating Christmas. We put on all the lights our houses can carry, all that our electric bill can tolerate, and all that won’t violate the Fire Code.
Let’s admit it, we’re crazy about Christmas. It’s our measure of our Christianism, our Catholicism. If other nations don’t know it, for sure the Vatican does, to the Pope’s satisfaction.
Well, maybe not so fast, the current Pope may or may not approve of our overly long feasting on Christmas. As Vatican observers say, Pope Francis is one unpredictable leader, he doesn’t necessarily go by traditional Vatican ways and preaching.
If we had our way, we’d want it to be Christmas every day of the year. That’s just who we are, good or bad we go bonkers over Christmas.
Until this year. This year we didn’t have the same Christmas season.
We still had the million lights, the world-renown Christmas lanterns, the street decor and all the usual trimmings. As always, the department stores started Christmas in September and the radio stations began playing carols at the same early time.
But many of us were moping this Christmas. Offices did not have the usual toasts and cheer among their employees. Bonuses were thinner.
For how could we celebrate Christmas in the aftermath of the most destructive natural calamity the whole world has seen and experienced? How could we be in a jolly Christmas mood when many of our countrymen died and many of their kin who’ve survived are homeless, hungry and helpless?
How could we gorge on the usual holiday table fare when many of our fellow Filipinos won’t even have any scrap of food to put in their mouths? How could we raise our glasses in celebration when there’s nothing to toast?
This year Christmas was still on the calendar but its spirit was gone.
And yet, even as super typhoon Yolanda stole our Christmas, it wasn’t all gloomy. Despite Yolanda’s fury, despite her brute force, despite her unprecedented violence, and despite more than 6,000 dead and many more missing, the nation survived the deluge.
We mourn the dead and the missing. We feel sad for the near-total physical destruction, and we feel and fear for those who will have to pick up their lives and try to move on.
And despite the daunting prospects for recovery, we must have hope for the people of Eastern Visayas as they struggle and carry on toward a brighter future. It will be a long journey, but let’s hope they will get there.
The Filipino nation has responded valiantly as one. The response has been swift and wholehearted. The international community too has been there for us. We just have to make sure all the aid and relief will go to the victims. We just have to make sure the aid money gets to where it’s intended and used as intended.
The nation has survived Yolanda. The survivors are striving to pick up themselves and rise above the debris and destruction. As they do this, the nation and the whole world will be by their side.
We take pride and consolation in what CNN said about us, that it was a privilege and honor that Yolanda chose to unleash her fury upon us the Filipinos because it is we who can best take and survive such unprecedented wrath of Nature.
Yolanda did indeed steal our Christmas this year. All of us Filipinos, not only the unfortunate people of Eastern Visayas, have been less cheerful this season. But if any people in the whole world can survive Yolanda’s deluge, it is us. That is something to celebrate.
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