Filipino Christmas Traditions, Explained

Ask a Filipino when Christmas starts and watch them answer without hesitating. September.

Not as a joke. On 1 September the radio stations change, the malls change, and somebody in your family chat posts a countdown. The Philippines runs the longest Christmas season anywhere, and it isn’t only commercial — the structure underneath it is religious, and quite specific. Here’s what actually happens, in order, so you can follow along or explain it to children who’ve only seen it through a screen.

Why do Filipino Christmas traditions start in September?

Because of the “-ber months”. September, October, November, December — once the first of them arrives, the season is considered open.

There’s no doctrine behind it. It grew out of habit, radio programming and retail, and it has become genuinely sincere. A four-month season also suits a country whose people are scattered: flights get booked, balikbayan boxes get shipped by sea in September to arrive by December, and everyone gets months to organise the homecoming. Filipinos abroad often feel the season start earlier than the people around them, which is its own strange loneliness.

What is Simbang Gabi and why nine Masses?

Simbang Gabi, also called Misa de Gallo — “Mass of the Rooster” — is a series of nine dawn Masses held from 16 to 24 December. They typically start around four in the morning, though many parishes now also offer an anticipated evening Mass for people who work.

The dawn timing traces to the Spanish colonial period, when the Masses were scheduled early so farmers and fishermen could attend before the working day. That practicality is the whole origin. Nine days mirrors the novena pattern that also structures a town pista, the annual patron saint fiesta.

Then there’s the folk belief, which every Filipino child hears: complete all nine, without missing one, and your wish is granted. The Church has never taught this as doctrine. It persists anyway, and it is a remarkably effective way to get teenagers out of bed at 3:40am.

The other half of Simbang Gabi happens outside the church. Stalls set up before dawn selling:

• Bibingka — a rice cake baked in a clay pot with coals above and below, on banana leaf, topped with salted duck egg and cheese, brushed with butter and dusted with sugar and coconut.
• Puto bumbong — purple glutinous rice steamed inside bamboo tubes until it comes out in soft sticks, then served with butter, muscovado sugar and grated coconut.
• Tsokolate — thick hot chocolate whisked from tablea, the local cacao tablets.

Eating these in the dark at five in the morning with your family, still half asleep, is the memory most people are actually chasing when they say they miss Christmas at home.

What does the parol mean?

The parol is the star lantern hung in windows, on gates and along whole streets. The word comes from the Spanish farol, meaning lantern, and it represents the Star of Bethlehem that led the wise men. Practically, it also lit the way for people walking to dawn Mass before streets had electricity.

The traditional build is simple enough to do with kids: a five-pointed star frame of split bamboo, tied at the joints, covered with papel de japon — thin coloured paper — and finished with two tails hanging from the lower points. Modern versions use plastic, capiz shell, or strings of chasing lights. In San Fernando, Pampanga, lantern-making became an industry and a competition, with enormous electrically-lit lanterns whose light patterns are choreographed.

What is on the table for Noche Buena?

Noche Buena is the family meal eaten at or after midnight on Christmas Eve, usually following the last Simbang Gabi Mass. It’s the centre of the whole season — Christmas Day itself is quieter, mostly visiting.

What’s on the table varies by region and budget, but the recognisable spread includes:

• Hamón — a sweet cured Christmas ham, often glazed with pineapple.
• Queso de bola — a ball of Edam in red wax, sliced thin and eaten with the ham. The wax ball on the table is practically a symbol of the day.
• Lechon, whole roast pig, if the household is hosting a crowd.
• Spaghetti, Filipino-style: distinctly sweet, with banana ketchup, hotdog slices and grated cheese. Children’s favourite, and non-negotiable.
• Pancit, for long life — the same reasoning as at birthdays.
• Fruit salad with cream and condensed milk, made the day before and chilled.
• Ensaymada, buttered brioche with cheese, and more tsokolate.

One opinion: the sweet spaghetti is genuinely good and I’m tired of people apologising for it.

How do aguinaldo and pamamasko work?

Pamamasko is the Christmas visiting — going round to relatives and godparents, usually on Christmas Day. Children greet elders with mano po, taking the elder’s hand and touching the back of it to their forehead, and in return receive aguinaldo: a gift, and very often money in an envelope or folded into a small red packet.

The people most on the hook are ninongs and ninangs, godparents. A Filipino child can have a lot of them — godparents are chosen at baptism and again at confirmation, and at weddings the list runs long, as our wedding traditions guide explains. Being asked is an honour and a genuine responsibility, and it also means that by December a person with fifteen inaanak, godchildren, faces a real bill.

The honest part: this lands hardest on OFWs. If you’re the family member abroad, the assumption that you’ll give more, to more people, is often unspoken but firm. It arrives on top of December flights, balikbayan box shipping and the extra remittance everyone expects.

What works is deciding early and saying it out loud. Set a per-child figure in November, decide which godchildren you’re covering, and send it in one transfer rather than five — fees and queues both worsen through December, and our guide to sending money home shows how the margins compare. Nobody thinks less of a ninang who gives a modest, consistent amount. What causes friction is silence, then a surprise.

What is Monito-Monita, and what about the carollers?

Monito-Monita is the Filipino version of Secret Santa, drawn among officemates, classmates or cousins. The Philippine twist is that it usually runs for weeks with themed exchanges — “something round”, “something sweet”, “something red” — before the real gift on the final day. It stretches the fun out and keeps the budget small.

Carolling is done by children, and it’s improvised. The classic instrument is a tansan tambourine: flattened bottle caps punched through and threaded onto a wire loop, shaken for percussion. Groups go door to door singing “Ang Pasko ay Sumapit” or “Sa May Bahay”, collect coins, then sing a cheerful thank-you verse before moving on. Households keep small change by the door through December specifically for this.

How do Filipino families do Christmas when someone is abroad?

Deliberately, and with a bit of planning, because the default is that it hurts.

The things families actually do: ship the balikbayan box by sea in September or October so it lands in time; agree the video call slot weeks ahead, built around the worker’s shift rather than the family’s convenience; keep the call open through the meal rather than treating it as a scheduled event; give the person abroad a job in the celebration, like leading the prayer before Noche Buena. Small assignments beat being a face on a propped-up phone.

If you’re the one abroad, plan your own 24 and 25 December before December arrives. Find the Filipino chaplaincy near you — many parishes overseas run Simbang Gabi, sometimes in the evening, and there is usually bibingka afterwards made by someone’s tita, meaning auntie. Our guide to homesickness for OFWs goes into what helps when the season is hard.

The season, start to finish

And New Year?

Media Noche is the midnight meal on 31 December, and the customs around it are about luck rather than liturgy. Twelve round fruits on the table, one for each month, because round shapes suggest coins. Polka dots worn for the same reason. Coins in pockets, jingled at midnight. Every door and window in the house opened to let good fortune in. Enough noise — car horns, pot lids, torotot paper horns — to drive bad luck away. And children jumping at the stroke of midnight in the firm belief it makes them taller.

Nobody argues about whether the jumping works. That isn’t the point, and if you’ve read our explainer on Filipino superstitions you’ll recognise the logic: it costs nothing, and why take the chance.

More on Filipino customs and where they came from is in our Kultura section.