Christmas During Rizal´s Time & Today
Researched and compiled by Rudy A. Arizala
Santiago, Chile 16 December 2007
As Christmas Day draws nearer, it is worthwhile remembering how Christmas was celebrated during the time of our national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal and compare it with the celebration of today. To do this, we have to read some of the letters of Rizal and his two novels - "Noli Me Tangere" ( The Social Cancer) and "El Filubusterismo" (The Reign of Greed).
On 25 Dec. 1886, when Jose Rizal was in Berlin, feeling homesick and lonely, full of nostalgia, (like any expatriates Filipino today), wrote his mother as follows:
"My dearest mother:
"Today, Christmas, I take up the pen to write you a few lines. I want to devote a few hours this morning to a mental conversation with you while I think constantly that probably at this time the little grandchildren are bustling to kiss the hands of the grandparents to received the expected Christmas gifts. Above my room the boys of the carpenter are running around and enjoying themselves blowing a cornet, which probably was given to them last night, which was the children´s day."
On another Christmas, while already exiled in Dapitan, in a letter to T. Alonzo Rizal dated 5 January 1893, Jose Rizal described how he spent Christmas in December i892, as follows:
"I have not spent too bad a Christmas or New Year´s Eve here; no doubt I could have had a better time under other circumstances, but in those in which I find myself I could not have wanted more. . Three Spaniards came from a neighboring town and together with the local commander, another Spaniard, and a Frenchman, we had a gay Christmas Eve dinner We went to hear the midnight Mass; for you must know that I hear Mass every Sunday."(Pls. see Leon Ma. Guerrero´s book, "The First Filipino: A Biography of Jose Rizal", p.342).
In Rizal´s book: "Noli Me Tangere" (The Social Cancer, Chapter LVIII, p. 486), translated to English by Charles E. Derbyshire, he described Christmas Eve at a little town in the Philippines in the following words:
"The north wind whistled by, making the inhabitants of San Diego shier with cold. It was Christmas Eve and yet the town was wrapped in gloom. Not a paper lantern hung from the windows nor did a single sound in the houses indicate the rejoicing of other years."
Describing Christmas Eve in the same town of San Diego in Rizal´s second book "El Filubusterismo" (The Reign of Greed), Chapter V, p. 45, "A Chochero´s Christmas Eve, Rizal wrote:
" The only house wherein there seemed to be any mirth was Capitan Basilio' s. Hens and chickens cackled their death chant to the accompaniment of dry and repeated strokes, as of meat pounded on a chopping-block, and the sizzling of grease in the frying-pans. A feast was going on in the house, and even into the street there passed a certain draught of air, saturated with succulent odors of stews and confections."
In the same book of Rizal, "E Filibusterismo" (The Reign of Greed, Chapter VIII, "Merry Christmas!", pp.70-71, also translated to English by Charles E. Derbyshire, he described Christmas celebration in the Philipines during his time as follows:
"Christmas day in the Philippines is, according to the elders, a fiesta for the children, who are perhaps not of the same opinion and who, it may be supposed, have for it an instinctive dread. They are roused early, washed, dressed, and decked out with everything new, dear, and precious that they possess - high silk shoes, big hats, woolen or velvet suits, witout overlooking four or five scapularies. . . . Afterwards they are dragged from house to house to kiss their relatives hands. They they have to dance, sing, and recite all the amusing things they know, whether in the humor or not, whether comfortable or not in their fine clothes. . .Their relatives give them money. . ."
In all the above Christmas celebrations either as experienced personally by Rizal or narrated by him in his two books or novels, one essential factor should not be forgotten.. The true meaning and significance of the birth of Jesus Christ as observed also in contemporary times by another Filipino, a Jesuit priest Rev. Fr. Horacio de la Costa in his poem: "The Star of the Kings". He wrote (as I have told you before), that to most people, "Christmas is merely a feast", a time to dine with western wine and dance with western music. We have lost or forgotten the Child Jesus because a huge neon sign has blotted the Star of the Kings.
"But if through the quiet evening streets
We follow the wise Kings´Star
Where it beckons and swings
From the sills of the poor,
It may lead us yet through a low church door
Where we may kneel,
As the Kings long before,
Where the Child and Mother are."
Rizal, our national hero, did not forget the "Child and Mother", as we have seen when he was exiled in Dapitan After a "gay Christmas Eve dinner" with friends, he "went to hear the midnight Mass"in commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior!
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