It's way different here and I actually like it a lot. By it, I'm referring to the way people celebrate their "Christmas" here.
I still get to watch lots of shoppers busily rushing in the store to get their hands on the Christmas goodies, some still exchange gifts but that "Misa De Gallo" .. seem to not exist here.
Are you a Dutchy? Please correct me if I'm wrong about this but for all the years that I have been here I haven't heard nor got invited to attend the Misa De Gallo."
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It's possible that you guys have a different word for it. Misa De Gallo is a mass I used to go to with my grandparents and my folks during the Christmas season. If I remember it right (cause the last time I've ever done it was when I was 15), it starts from Dec 16 till either the 24th or the 25th.
Are you Pinoy? 10% upvote to anyone who could confirm the right date to that
but I'm guessing it's till the 25th cause if I remember it right it's being done 9 straight days.
It's a tradition the many of us observe and attached to that practice is the belief that anyone who could complete that whole Misa De Gallo days gets lucky all next year through. Some other people believe you could make a wish and that wish would come true if you get the whole Misa De Gallo completed, too. The said mass would be held around 2 am or 4am but always at dawn.
My first ever Misa De Gallo was with my grandparents and my aunt in Bicol and I don't remember how old I was back then but I do remember that I was very sleepy and everything was being rushed because it's embarrassing to be late since everybody knows everybody where I lived.
As a kid, I didn't really felt like waking up at 2 am to listen to "father John" that was really the name of the priest back then. He looks foreign and spoke Bikol in a very very slow way it would feel like a lullaby at dawn. It also worked like so for I remember many adults falling asleep around us. The mass had the same program, the same message and the same ritual contents.
Anyhow, I liked going to the Misa De Gallo because my friends and schoolmates go there, too! We tend to sit next to each other and most of all, my grandparents promised to buy me Timitim. That's a stick cassava cake topped with sticky young coconut meat strips so delicious when served warm you would absolutely forget your name once you've tried it. I do think it's an authentic Bicolano delicacy you should give it a try and hopefully, like back when we were young they were made not packed with sugar bombs. .
Most of the time, I sat with my aunt or my grandpa but I remember always looking for my friends or classmates because for whatever reason we wanted to sit together. By the way, kids in my country gets a lot of gifts and during those days, my parents send me dresses and my friends and I would make a promise to wear our new clothes during those days and that was probably another reason I kept going to church - to get new dresses . What? I was a kid! Weren't we all that shallow when we were young?
I didn't go to church because I was brainwashed that doing so won't bring you gifts or that I would go to hell. I went there because I was brought there and for all the shallow reasons I had specially during the Misa De Gallo. Do you have any idea how hard it is for a 5 year old to even open our eyes back then just to attend that?
It was torture not only the waking up part but also listening to the same sermon with a slight twist on it night after night that I remember my friends and I were ever so naughty even though we were girls, that we repeated what father John used to recite because we already have memorized it. Yes, of course, we got scolded and we giggled like most girls would probably do in such a situation but can you blame us back then?
When you're young, the world seem safe, kind and ever forgiving, it makes you courageous to try and dare do the things that you may not in house and take advantage of being in public and the insurance that you won't be hit out there. I remember sitting with my classmates and friends in one whole chair and falling asleep altogether with our mouths open and people just rubbed our backs feeling sorry we had to go through all these because our folks wanted us, to.
Well, if there's another thing that made me like going to the Misa De Gallo when I went back to Manila to finally live with my parents, it was the promise fo Bibingka and Puto Bumbong. I didn't have much friends in Manila because I didn't grow up there and my best friends were from different religions and some don't observe any of what we did so it was less fun and therefore, sleeping during the mass was so so hard to resist. My parents had to motivate us that we'll get a warm slice of puto bumbong or a mini bibingka (Filipino rice and cassava cakes) if we behave and finish the mass without drowsing.
I bear for the sake of that promised reward and was never disappointed. I cherish those funny moments running outside screaming excitedly with my friends back in my grandparent's place and with my Mom in Manila to get a hold of all those sweets and finally sink my teeth in them but ... yes, there is a but ... I wish that we have the same privilege kids have here of not being forced to do such rituals no matter what the occassion nor belief of their folks is!
Perhaps .. had my folks just let me sleep all night through and just brought me those sweet rewards unconditionally or regardless that I attend the mass or not, I would have grown taller. Some nights.. my asthma saved me from going through all that back then. I guess because I was a child, I felt forced, helpless and obliged to do what my folks believed is good for us.
When I was going to puberty that kind of treatment still didn't stop and sleeping through the whole hour of the Misa De Gallo was a mortal sin you don't only get stared at, you get reprimanded publicly and though I understand that it is rude to sleep when someone is talking, a certain feeling inside me overcome my kind version to just give in to the call of a slumber.
The incentive of getting even just a mini bibingka also vanished by then and completing the days was made an obligation. During those days, I missed the time when I was doing it as a child. I appreciate the reward the more but of course I also started questioning my parents about why I needed to do it. Somehow, I have always tried to get things my way and my parents finally had to give in to the fact that I have already been unleashed.
Somehow, I have to admit that because of Steemit, those childhood memories of how my Christmas was flashed back while I look for inspirations of what to write and I just can't resist to share it with you all.
As you probably already expect.. you've come to that part where I get to ask Have you as a child had to attend the Misa De Gallo? What did your parents give you as a reason to make you do it? What was your experience like? 15% upvote
to anyone who'd brave spilling out at the comment section.
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