John Jonas explains why Filipino families celebrate Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve more than the actual holidays. The big events are midnight feasts, fireworks, wearing polka dots, eating 13 round fruits, and jumping to grow taller, though firecracker injuries keep hospitals busy through the season.
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Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are bigger than the actual day in the Philippines. So when I was growing up, Christmas Day was it for me. Like, I remember every year waking up sometime in the middle of the night and Santa had come, and I got out of my bed and I went out and I. I went through a bunch of my stocking, and I put it back, and I looked around and I just checked everything out, put everything back to how it was, and then I went back to bed. Christmas Day was like magic. And for me now, Christmas Day is still pretty magic. Usually we ski on Christmas Day, and that's like, that's it for me. That's. It's so awesome. In the Philippines, it's actually Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve that are really important for them. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna talk through some of what this is. I'm gonna quote Julia some in this and what she said. So Christmas Day and New Year's Day are days when they sleep in because they. The real celebration happens the night before. I'm gonna quote here. Both celebrations start the same way. Early in the morning, families start cooking for the midnight feasts, which is called noche buena for Christmas and media Noche for New Year. And you'll notice, I don't know if you know, I speak Spanish also. These are both Spanish words. Philippine language has a lot of Spanish influence in it. This is when the big family gathering happens. So we all come together in one house. It's usually a massive feast with enough food to last to the new Year. As she says, I'm not exaggerating. A lot of things we make, if it's not easily perishable, get served again for New Year's Day. Everybody brings, everybody eats while cooking. So throughout the day, people show up, they party, they party harder. They make a lot of noise. Video keys going on all over the streets. People are out singing, partying, people playing with noisemakers. Fireworks are a big part of this. Everything goes on, goes on until the sun goes down and continues until the sun comes up. At midnight, though, is when everything really happens. Everybody starts feasting. Fireworks, firecrackers, noisemakers. Everything's going on at midnight is like the culmination of everything. And this is both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. So Julia says, when I was a kid, Christmas Eve was my favorite holiday. We don't wait for Christmas morning. As soon as the clock strikes 12, it's morning. That's when we open our presents. She says it's the same For New Year's Eve, we stay up till midnight to do different traditions like switching on all the lights and making a lot of noise to ward off the evil spirits. Jumping as high as we can to grow taller, putting on polka dot clothes to be richer, serve 13 round fruits to be richer again. That's not super different than here in the US where we stay up till, till midnight on New Year's Eve, but it's kind of not as traditional as in the Philippines. So she says there, there is a downside to all this partying. Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day are usually when hospitals are the busiest. All the fireworks, the firecrackers, everything going on. There's a lot of injuries, a lot of people going to the hospital. She also says, which I don't know why she's done this, but she says that working, it's really hard to work when the country is trying to make enough noise to start an earthquake. I don't know why she's tried to work on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Certainly not because I required it. Although maybe she had stuff to do that she felt like she ought to get done and I didn't know about. But that is, that is part of it. If you want to sleep or you got a new baby, then, well, it's going to be, it's going to be pretty rough in the Philippines. And then you also have to clean up. There's a lot of mess to be made. So happy holidays, Whatever, whatever you celebrate, Hanukkah, Christmas, whatever it is, I hope it's going well. This whole thing almost makes me want to be in the Philippines during, during the Christmas season. Of course, then I would miss the snow and the skiing and it's not worth it to me.
