BUSINESS CORRIDOR
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
Allow me then to depart from my usual dishing out of the market situation and conditions as the year draws to close. Instead, let me enlighten you with some of the quirky Christmas traditions, customs and ways of celebrating the Holiday Season that we just tend to accept without really looking into its etymology.
Wonder what’s the rationale for putting up the Christmas tree upside-down, which are on the display window of some major shops, instead of the usual standing up straight?
In 2018, social media aficionados noticed Ariana Grande’s IG post of her Christmas tree upside-down, which the singer explained is “a metaphor for life: sometimes life just be upside down.”
Here in our country, I believe Solidaridad, the quaint little bookshop owned by my late uncle, National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose, is the first store that has put up its Christmas tree upside down that actually attracted passersby in the street of Padre Faura.
A version of the story traces the tradition to the eighth century when Saint Boniface first hung a fir tree upside down to represent the Holy Trinity and stopped a group of pagans who were worshiping an oak tree.
Now as we parents are busy doing last-minute shopping for gifts and for “Noche Buena,” our school children, who are on a holiday break, are on frenzied activities practicing songs for caroling, an oral tradition though up until now its beginning remains unclear.
Even the word carol is likewise unclear whether it came from the French word “carole” or the Latin word “carula,” which means a circular dance. Based on my research, “the singing of carols” serves as a reminder that “God, in his love for us, sent his son to be one of us.”
Talking about Christmas carols, it calls to mind Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Assistant Governor in charge of the Treasury Department Ramona “Winnie” Santiago, who admitted the song The Twelve Days of Christmas “has always baffled” her.
In her FB feed, she wondered “what in the world do leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas?”
And voila, Ms. Winnie’s curiosity paid off. She found out and I share: from 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Some believe that the carol was written during that era as a catechism song for young Catholics.
It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.
- The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.
- Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.
- Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.
- The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.
- The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.
- The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.
- Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.
- The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.
- Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.
- The ten lords a-leaping were the Ten Commandments.
- The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.
- The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.
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