Somber Christmas celebration during the Spanish colonial times

From a few documents we've come across at the National Archives and the Archdiocesan Archives of Manila, it appears that there was not much fun on Christmas during the Spanish times.  Santa Claus, Christmas trees and other trimmings arrived with the Americans to become part of Pinoy culture in the first half of the 1900s.  Christmas shopping and Christmas parties were not part of our lifestyle then.  

The mood of the season was somber, the focus on the spiritual starting from the feast of the Immaculada Concepcion, patroness of the country and of the cathedral, on the 8th of December until the feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January. 

At the Manila Cathedral, they held 40 hours of jubilee for the Immaculate Conception.  The ordinates had specific assignments during the religious services from the 8th to the 10th of December.  In 1859, for example, ordinates Dn Jacinto Zamora and Dn Jose Burgos were assigned to keep watch before the Blessed Sacrament, Zamora on 9th December, 10:00-10:30 AM, and Burgos on the 10th, 6:30-7:00 AM.  The next year, they had the same assignments, Zamora during the early evening of the 8th and Burgos during the early morning shift. 

The religious mood can also be gleaned from the whole-page spread titled "Alegoria de la noche buena" in the 25 December 1875 issue of the El Oriente, an illustrated weekly on the sciences, literature, arts, etcetera.  The upper part depicted the events of Christmas: the trip to Jerusalem, the nativity, the epiphany and escape to Egypt.  The lower portion depicted two men tending to a flock of turkeys, people going to church, and a group gathered around a dining table. Did the noche buenas of yore have turkeys in the menu? 

"Alegoria de la noche buena"

An inside section featured the cultos religiosos (religious services) that informed readers of the daily schedules of these services in the various churches inside the walled city from the 19th (Sunday) to the the 25th (Saturday), Christmas day.

Schedule of religious services, 19-25 December 1875.

 According to the schedule, the daily misa de aguinaldo would continue to be celebrated in the Intramuros and Santo Domingo churches starting at 4:30 and 5:00 o'clock in the morning, respectively.

On the 24th, there would be a vigil of the nativity, and Christians are asked to do fasting and abstinence on that day. 

Christmas day would begin with a sung mass in almost all the churches at midnight in celebration of the ineffable mystery of the birth of Jesus, sung with all solemnity before the matins.

There was a time in our religious history, in the 1680s, when the archbishop prohibited the celebration of the misa de aguinaldo because the masses were contaminated "with practices that were superstitious, and contrary to the holy rites of the church" (Sanchez et al, 1683-89).   

But around a century later, Fray Pedro Murillo Velarde (1749) was already writing about the nine-day early morning masses being sung with great solemnity.  

In 1885, Fray Pedro Rosell (1885) was describing to his superior the religious ceremonies being held "to honor the birth of our Blessing, Jesus."  He wrote of the celebration of the immaculate conception "a week beforehand" followed by "a daily mass of the [Virgin Mary]," which we read as the nine-day dawn misas de aguinaldo.

"On the last day or the vigil of the feast," Rosell continued, "a pleasing, although simple Belen was made at one side of the presbytery in which were placed the images of the Child, Mary, and Joseph. Christmas eve came, and at eleven o'clock the bells were rung loudly, and from half past eleven until twelve, a continual ringing of bells two at a time announced to the people that the mass called Gallo was to be celebrated in memory of that holy hour in which the eternal Son of God the Father, made man in the most pure entrails of the Virgin Mary willed to be born on that poor and abandoned manger threshold [portal de Belen]. Hence when twelve o'clock had struck, the missa-cantata was said, which was followed by the adoration of the holy Child. That was made enjoyable by the singing of some fine Christmas carols. The twenty-fifth dawned bright and joyful."

It's 2013, and Christmas remains bright and joyful with both religious and commercial trimmings.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

References: 

• I.E.14 Libro de Gobierno Ecclesiastical (March 1846-May 1862).  Folder 2. Document 3044 (p. 194-198). Archdiocesan Archives of Manila.

• I.E.14 Libro de Gobierno Ecclesiastical (October 1852 - May 1862), 2⁰.  Folder 1. Doc. 3124 (p. 223).  Archdiocesan Archives of Manila.

•  El Oriente (1875, Dec 25). Alegoria de noche buena and Cultos Religiosos. SDS-23337 El Oriente 1875-76. National Archives of the Philippines.

• Sanchez, Juan, et al. (1683-89). Felipe Pardo as archbishop. The Pardo Controversy. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 : explorations by early navigators, etc. (Blair, E.H. & Robertson, J. A., Eds., Bourne, E.G., Tr.).   39(1):245-246. Mandaluyong, Rizal: Cachos Hermanos, 1973.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/atd7328.0039.001 

• Velarde, P. M. (1749). Jesuit missions in the seventeenth century.  The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 : explorations by early navigators, etc. (Blair, E.H. & Robertson, J. A., Eds., Bourne, E.G., Tr.).   44(1):108-109.  Mandaluyong, Rizal: Cachos Hermanos, 1973.  Retrieved from  http://name.umdl.umich.edu/atd7328.0044.001

• Rosell, P. (1885, Apr 17). Letter from Father Pedro Rosell [S.J.] The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 : explorations by early navigators, etc. (Blair, E.H. & Robertson, J. A., Eds., Bourne, E.G., Tr.).   43(1):225-228.  Mandaluyong, Rizal: Cachos Hermanos, 1973.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/atd7328.0043.001