The Christmas countdown has begun!
The month of December has rolled in and there’s no denying the Yuletide feeling is in the air. Unfortunately for us, some of may be feeling as grumpy as The Grinch with the heavy holiday traffic, the frenetic Christmas shopping and packed malls, and the required-to-attend office and family parties.
Makes you wonder if you can just skip all this frenzied celebrations and fly off somewhere else for a quiet Christmas, right?
But you don’t have to see it that way. Spending the holidays in Metro Manila can be an incredible experience. The fact is, we love to celebrate Christmas so much that we start to set up Yuletide decorations as early as October.
With that mind, here are five good reasons to spend the holidays in Metro Manila. But to make things more interesting, let’s turn things around and use these reasons as a countdown to Christmas Day itself.
Here they are: Five Reasons for Spending the Holidays in Metro Manila.
5th Reason: Shopping
Metro Manila is a known shopping haven worldwide, but things get kicked up a notch come the Christmas season. When it does, the popular shopping centers explode with people tracking the last gift on their Christmas list. These range from items with bargain/basement-level prices at the Greenhills Shopping Center and Divisoria to the high-end/arts-and-craft pieces in malls and bazaars set up in hotels, schools and exclusive subdivisions.
Things can get tight shopping at these places with the holiday crowd out in force. But if you stick it out, you can be sure that you can find the perfect gift for everyone on your Christmas list.
4th Reason: Christmas Lanterns
As the traditional Filipino symbol of Christmas, the lantern or parol is quite ubiquitous. You can see them everywhere: on street lamps, against building walls, in house windows, etc. The most common is the five-pointed star with two tails but other lanterns come in all shapes and sizes.
Before, these fragile paper-and-bamboo pieces were historically lit up by a small candle inside. However, today’s technology means that they can be lit up by “dancing” electronic lights or even LED rope lights, making them even more colorful and eye-catching at night.
3rd Reason: Parties
Events like Christmas and the New Year are reminders for us to celebrate the things we should be grateful for, whether it’s family and friends, good health, or even a well-paying job.
In other words, Filipinos love to party. In fact, there’s a party for every segment of the Filipino life: there’s the office party, the party for the immediate family and the extended family, the party for different groups of friends, the neighborhood or subdivision street party, etc.Filipinos know this—which is why there are parties galore in the lead-up to Christmas Day itself, when everyone fills up on loads of good food and intoxicating drinks.
2nd Reason: Zero Traffic
Like the post-apocalypse, the streets of Metro Manila become clean and clear on Christmas Day as people suffer at home with their party hangovers. Enjoy the day as you drive around as the King of the Road. Want to dance in the middle of EDSA? Go ahead, live a little. You can only do this once (well, twice) a year.
Twice a year? Well, you’ll get the same feeling when New Year’s Day rolls around. (That, or when a Pacquiao fight happens.)
1st Reason: Fireworks
Like we said earlier, Filipinos love to celebrate and what better way to celebrate the end of the old year and the start of a new one by setting off a lot of fireworks!
Like the American 4th of July, the Philippines took a page from their Chinese counterparts and marked the boundary of the years with fireworks. These range from baby rockets and small dancing firecrackers to giant ones (both legal and illegal) like Judas’ Belt, Atomic Bomb, Pla-pla, and El Diablo.
But if you’re not the type to light fireworks, you can still watch the aerial firework shows that herald the New Year anywhere in the major cities of Metro Manila. After all, it’s always a great way to end the year with a bang!
