BagongPinay - Site Director's Christmas Letter - 2003 - Twinkling and Glowing of Christmas, by Perla Paredes Daly

You are here: Home > Members > Pinay Ngayon > Site Director's Christmas Letter - 2003
.........Twinkling and Glowing of Christmas, Perla Paredes Daly

I am happy to share old pictures of my last home and the lights and decorations that delight our family during the Christmas season. --- Perla

Christmas Letter from the Site Director, 2003

Twinkling and Glowing of Christmas
The Lights of the Season: Decorations and Spirit.

by Perla Paredes Daly

Delightful Decorations
and Christmas Lights

Our whole family loves the lights of Christmas. At least once every Christmas season, our family gets in the car and drives around our neighborhood just to look at the lights on people’s homes and then we go down to the village crèche where a scene of a spectacular life-size Nativity story unfolds. We even find an occasion to go to other neighborhoods to look at the colorful light shows.

On the first weekend of December, we too take time to decorate the front of our house with strings and nets of lights.
My husband has his favorite colored rope lights he winds around the trees that are a hit with our kids and the neighbors’. We know other people enjoy our lights too because in the evenings, we see car lights slow down in front of our house as they drive by.

This angel graces the entrance
of our home all throughout the year. Click to enlarge.

Inside our home during Christmas, I like to use my mothering and creative energy to get the house spruced up. I drape as many lights as my pocket book can handle, and luckily, I use a lot of the accumulated lights left over from previous years.


Our home entrance always gets touches of a whimsy and magic for Christmas. Here are pics of our last home. Click pictures to enlarge

Both children and the adults in our home have a gleeful time with the tiny white lights interspersed with stars, sparkling accents, magical creatures, and fresh evergreens.

Candlelight too is something I kick up a few notches during the Christmas season. Floating candles in glass bowls, clusters of candles with tiny enamel colored Christmas balls, and small-ribboned gift boxes…

Where I am for now, in this part of the world, during the wintertime daylight gets shorter and night lasts longer, so people seem to deck their homes and halls with lots of lights to find a charming way to make up for the lessening of sunshine. I also like to think of all the extra lights as peoples’ way of increasing starlight around them.

Warm up the room with a golden bowl filled with water. Place floating candles with finger candles held in small crystal star holders. The more candles the merrier.
Click to enlarge

Parols at the ASEAN in the Philippines. Source unknown.

In the Philippines, we have a wonderful tradition of the parol, the Christmas star lantern. As a young girl I and some of my friends joined a parol-making contest to represent our high school, St. Scholastica's Academy. We made one of abaca materials and the Madonna and Child represented in the middle.

I also always enjoyed the dozens of parols that were hung up in the halls of the Cathedral in the front of the plaza of Bacolod City.

I found a web site that you can visit to enjoy this Filipino Christmas tradition online. Visit these parol web pages by Denise Conanan. .
For other Filipino Christmas traditions visit this site by Jeanne Pasero for info and more links: Click here.
And visit this link if you are in the U.S. but are interested in buying your own parol: PacificOrientProducts.com


For Christmas this year, the old distressed mirror at my entrance hall gets decked up with twinkling lights, glass grape-beads and whimsical figures. Christmas Krinkles decor by Patience Brewster, A Collection by Department 56. More info.			Click pictures for detail.

Over the years, I and my family have made many of our Christmas decorations, too.
Gum drops on a styrofoam cone, toothpicks, glue, a clean stick or branch of the right size, moss, a clay pot and some stones inside....together make a colorful candy topiary my kids want to eat...but can't because this topiary is 6 years old now!	Our tree this year. This little felt snowman is something my 8-year old son is proud of. He made it when he was 2.	These homemade felt decors are older then my 14-year-old son. We have fancier skirts, but my kids love the stars and the little town scene on this one. Every year, my youngest son is still excited to hang the gingerbread man and woman. They are special because I I made them when I and Ken just got married. This figures represented us as a young couple.	My mom loves fruit arrangements for the holidays. Filipinos believe they signify abundance and prosperity. She made this topiary for our home and puts it out for the New Year's.
			Click pictures for detail

Being able to hang up lights with decorations at Christmas is not only a joy but also a blessing.

Once a person from the mid-east visiting the U.S. viewed Christmas lights with wonder. He thought that the U.S. government must certainly subsidize peoples' electricity bills because back where he came from, electricity is a dear and expensive utility.

So there is the outer aspect of twinkling lights of Christmas that many delight in and there is, too, the inner glow of lights for Christmas…

What connection does the Buddhist greeting of Namaste have with the Christmas spirit?Clue: The Inner Light of the Season.

The Light of Christmas within Us

Each and everyone one of us has a light within us. Call it Soul, Spirit, Heart, or the Image of God within us…
But that light within must be uncovered, discovered in others. And in ourselves.
When we can see that there is Beauty and Truth in all people and all cultures and traditions, we are seeing the Light in others; we are seeing God in others.

Candles in your house can really add delight and joy to the atmosphere.
Click to enlarge

In my personal journey I have come to know the Buddhist greeting of “Namaste”. This word has many translations and my favorite one is: “The Light within me greets the Light within you.” This touches me deeply because it is a way of saying, that there is the highest good in our selves and in others. It also means to me that we can greet each other and acknowledge that glowing spirit of every human if we choose to.

I practice an ecumenical spirituality today, and somehow I appreciate better that devout matriarchs and Catholic school taught me that Christ is in each and every one of us. We can avoid confusion from trying to understand the concept of Christ within us, by putting it into symbolic terms---Christ is the Divine Spark or the Light of God within us. Namaste is that same essence of Universal Truth, said from the context of a different language, time and place of origin, a different cultural tradition---but is the same basic idea.

Our words and acts of kindness and compassion are ways we can shine our Light into other peoples’ lives. When we pray for healing and blessings for others, we are sending rays of Light to other peoples’ lights and helping their Light strengthen in brightness.

In this manner of speaking we can learn that hurtful words, negativity towards each other, even the Christian concept of the act of sin is a way of blocking our own Light from reaching others and other peoples’ inner Lights from coming to us. And then we can see how Christ's coming to Earth to remove our Sin is very symbolic to how makeing His Teachings a part of our Lives...how Christ in our Lives... enables us to shine brighter with Love.

If we were to see with new eyes that all peoples' souls are Divine Lights, we can practice holding a vision in our minds that the souls of humanity are like a galaxy of stars and that we each can glow brighter and help others become brighter too. What God wants for us is to be a glorious part of his Creation. We have to learn to be co-creative with the Creative Force.

Strip away the separate-mentality of our-religion-is-the-TRUE-religion righteous dogma and the seed of Christianity and every great religion has the Universal message of Christ-hood, that is, Truth, Love, Compassion, Faith and spiritual growth in closeness to the Divine.

Click to enlarge
The Nativity Scene is a family tradition that our family will always celebrate.
I hope someday that my children will continue the tradition with their families in the years to come.
The Holy Family and Christ's Birth is something from which fresh meaning can come always.

This Christmas may we discover our inner Light in others and in ourselves ... may our Lights glow bright... and may we help others' Lights glow brighter this holiday season and all throughout the year.

As my online "gift" of Light to you visitors, I give to you the link of Gentle Art of Blessing, by Pierre Pradervand. Download and print it out if you can. Read it at the beginning of your day a few times until blessing(shining you Light out) becomes a natural part of your life that you do unconsciously. It is a practice that can help your Light grow brighter and one that sends Light and Love to others. This carries the sincere and true spirit of Christmas

And so---Merry Christmas! The Light in Me greets the Light in You. And may many blessings come to you throughout the new year and all the new years to come.

Ever out of Love,

Perla

Philippine Parol photo sources unknown.

Open Forum! Share your opinions and suggestions pertaining to this topic at the Message Boards MagsalitaKa (Speak Out) Section.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

| Home | Site Map | Contact Us |