I still feel the pre-dawn chill of my first Simbang Gabi in Tondo, Manila, slipping out of bed at 4 a.m. My Nanay Curing would tug me along to the dimly lit church, where the air hummed with murmured prayers and the scent of freshly baked bibingka and puto bumbong wafting from vendors outside.

We seldom complete the nine masses from Dec. 16 to 24 because we would be walking to Divisoria instead of the church. The holidays are busy times in the market with families buying ingredients for their Christmas and New Year feasts.

Christmas in the Philippines is not just a fleeting holiday but also a soul-stirring odyssey that begins in September and lingers into January, the world's longest season of light. It's unique because it weaves faith, resilience, and an unshakeable love for family into every twinkling parol and shared laugh, turning ordinary homes into sanctuaries of profound joy. It does not matter if you are poor or rich, we all celebrate this special holiday. Despite not having enough money for extravagant celebrations, I have always cherished the time our family spent together cuddled together or around our table with simple food.

Filipino Christmas is one of a kind and world-famous. Foreigners cannot fathom why we celebrate it for so long. The carols start early, right after All Saints' Day, flooding the streets with Christmas songs from every sari-sari store radio. All our Vista Malls start decorating by this time and play popular Christmas tunes for shoppers. Homes glow with handmade parols and streets are lined with Christmas lights and decors.

But beyond the dazzle—the mall crowds, the traffic, the credit card debts, the frenzy of wrapping paper and firecracker smoke—Christmas in the Philippines unveils its profound truth: it's all about family, our loved ones. I see it now, looking back: the material gifts, the holiday stress, the trivial worries like unfinished work—they dissolve like morning mist. What's left is the sacred act of gathering, of presence.

For our new heroes, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), the Christmas spirit arrives not in snowflakes but in balikbayan boxes stuffed with wrinkled photos, dried mangoes, and handwritten notes from children growing taller by the year. Stranded in Dubai's skyscrapers or Hong Kong's neon bustle, they endure the sadness and loneliness in order to make their future brighter. Amid homesickness, OFWs embody Christmas's profound essence—love as the ultimate gift, regenerating families one video call at a time.

This year, as our nation grapples with entrenched poverty, political corruption, environmental degradation, and social fragmentation, these traditions hold untapped power of providing is hope and inspiration. Christmas can transcend all our challenges to become a blueprint for regeneration—a spark for change that regenerates society by channeling the festive spirit into solidarity and action.

When we were still living in Tondo, Christmas and other festivities like the famous Tondo fiesta, become a showcase of bayanihan—our own brand of collective action, a direct antidote to individualism and inequality. In Tondo, even as families do not have enough money, families would pool meager resources: one contributes pansit for longevity, another kakanin sticky with solidarity. In the Philippines, Christmas isn't celebrated; it's lived—a profound return to the heart's home. It pierces the spirit: in a "more"-obsessed world, it reclaims essence—loved ones and a strong sense of community as miracle.

In the grip of political tempests, economic storms ravaging our shores, and social fractures testing our resolve, may this Christmas whisper profound truth: our family's unbreakable love. Wishing you joy that mends divisions, strength to rise from floods and feuds, and, abundance in every Filipino homes.

Maligayang Pasko sa inyong lahat!

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