Tuesday night, the countdown begins at the Rose Garden, not just to close out what have been a hectic, roller-coaster ride in the last few weeks since November 24, but actually to put a fitting farewell tribute to an ending year. For those of us who conceptualized, planned, coordinated, and executed what we thought ought to be the standard by which succeeding Baguio Christmas ought to be done, it has been a journey made more interesting by what have been achieved. Not just the remembered revelry that has caught city folks in eruptive moods, not the lush merriment and joy that a Christmas ambiance has generated, not just the wonderment that an enchanting festival has brought about. This time, it’s the spiritually uplifting kind, something that brings the feeling-good milieu several notches up, something that brings into the fore the Reason for the Season.
And so we close out by midnight the passing of another year and welcome at the same time the onset of another. Christmas in Baguio however has still a good one full week to close out an experience worth recalling each time. Letting it all go as the clock strikes 12 may be easy for most, as it should always be, if we’re to face head’s up to what a new year offers. Oh yes, for those with deeply-embedded emotions nibbling at every turn, letting go becomes a punishing ordeal. But for us who have been raised, schooled, and opted to get into a love-Baguio mode, there’s no option but to, well, let it slide, let it go, let it get buried, along with mistakes done, with errors stumbled into, with frailties not uncommon to those who have gone through every trial, every triumph, every fall.
We thank at the slightest opportunity all those who stood by us the rest of the way, believing with us in our quest to give the city something different, innovative, and definitely one for the milestone books. Christmas in Baguio has always been well, just run-of-the-mill, packaged through the years as one long, holiday spree that would be worth every tourist’s excruciating trip. We simply thought that this time around, with the breath of fresh air infecting us all, something else must be simply waiting in the wings, just a like a dream that gets pushed into hard, cold reality once the faith sets in.
So we persevered, believing for once Baguio deserves to have its own signature branding that not only will lure compatriots up here, but will give city folks long jaded by unimaginative offerrings a sense of belonging, a sense of pride, a sense of achievement that can be had. For one thing, too many Christmasses have the Christ been unwittingly left out. Thus, we strived to instill in the 43-day Christmas festival what has been every Filipino’s Christmas customary trait for centuries now — the venerated, folksy Simbang Gabi. For us, it needed re-creating the Nativity Day more than 2,000 years ago — the biblical readings, the homily, and the frequent references to the Birth in Bethlehem that shook up mankind.
This is the spiritual Christmas in Baguio that we elevated several notches up by way of Anticipated Masses worked out thankfully with the Bishopric office and endeavored purposely to drill in the end-all and be-all of Christmas: Christ himself. By all means possible, it was awe-inspiring to draw spiritual strength from where it all begun. The narrative that tells it all had its beginnings at the manger, when no room could be found in any inn. All through the eerie night, the holy birth took place. Swathed in swaddling clothes lying in a manger under the starkest circumstances, Jesus came into the world amid the poorest and deprived condition. Could there have been a more telling reminder that, in poverty, we can all rise from our human status to become a Redeemer, a Savior, a Christ long awaited?
So by year’s end, we’ll also be at day’s end, something that city folks found just merrily rousing, when stellar presentations — thank you Mayor Isko for the surprise of surprises, a one-man country music concert — gave entertainment a new dimension of musicality: simply magical. Truly, we’ve gone many notches up, not simply content on what have been so-so performances that have gone stale and static. Again, despite heightening eyebrows how ideas can soar, the wonders of Christmas have even spread wider as emphasis produced above-grade entertainment.
Who can forget how the kids got all the fun they had during Children’s Week? Heartfelt was the bonding between the cared for and the caring, the gift giving that went along with it, the fun and merriment that children of all ages simply deserve from those who have more. Christmas is said to be for children, and what better way to celebrate it than to thrust the trusting and the trusted into the wonderment of the Christmas spirit?
Simply stated: you and I endeavored to achieve a simple goal: to make our Christmas celebration enchanting enough to inspire a community of kindred souls aching to do our shared roles the best we can. Surely, the world we live in day-by-day is big enough for the Christmas spirit to immerse us all, heart and soul, towards a desired noble aspiration.
You and I put together a 43-day journey to emphasize how our city can inspire others as they have inspired us to do the best we can in performing public duties the best way they can be done. This will happen when we’re standing by each other’s back, not digging in knives from nowhere. We regard our city officials with utmost respect the way partners of any endeavor should, serving shoulder-to-shoulder, striving, aspiring, and winning as one.
To our people, thank you for all the support. To all our sponsors, they who spared no minute to make things happen, they who believed that the concept of enchantment can be creatively woven into a unifying fabric of good common sense, thank you coming on board this journey. Together, as echoed on the first day of Simbang Gabi, let us rejoice in Christ. As partners worthy of each other’s esteem, bonded by a common good faith, let us bid an old, fading year farewell and embrace the onset of a new year. Let the first of its 365 days spray the sunshine rays of joy in hope, strength in faith, activeness in charity, and love overpowering greed, envy, hatred, enmity. Merry Christmas and a Year of Abundance to everyone
