Owing to the Catholic heritage of the Philippines, Christmas is so ingrained to Filipino culture, so much so that it transcends its religious roots. Whether rightfully or otherwise, Christmas has become a part of the secular culture of the country, showing traces of western influence to what would otherwise be entirely Hispanic.

After seeing the Wisdom of Da Vinci AI exhibit in BGC, Ran and I took a relatively long walk to McKinley Hill where we would be seeing the McKinley Hill Grand Christmas Parade. It was considered a comeback event for the parade having been cancelled previously due to the pandemic.

With the throng of spectators on the streets of McKinley Hill on that day though, it was as if the pandemic never happened. It wasn’t surprising. After a couple of years of being told to stay indoors, the Christmas parade was practically the kind of Christmas Filipinos are accustomed to: loud, jovial and exciting.

According to the organizers of the parade, they drew inspiration from the Macy’s Grand Parade in the United States. The parade would traverse 3.5 kilometers, featuring floats, mascots, big balloons and on-foot performers. We patiently waited in the midst of the excited onlookers, and around 05:30 PM, some floats and giant balloons started to arrive.

It took quite a while before the parade moved, as there was a street stage were performances were being held and the floats have to pass through that stage. The darkness of the evening has started to slowly embrace the sky, which made the floats more vibrant with their lights.

Staying on a single spot is not really our thing, so Ran and I moved to different areas of McKinley Hill just to get a glimpse of the parade from different angles. Besides, the slow moving pace of the parade made time to seem to pass rather slowly.

We went towards the back part of the Venice Grand Canal Mall, the are facing the Italian Embassy. There, we saw the foot parade, some balloons and commercially sponsored floats.

When the parade pace started to stall again, we moved further down the parade route, eventually reaching the area where the street stage was. There, we found more floats and giant balloons waiting for their turn to move further.

As we walk further towards the stage, we saw a fitting finale for the parade, one that is the source of joy of every kid in the country and of pride of every Filipino: Jollibee!

A little before 08:00 PM, the parade was officially over. It was graced by a fireworks display, but Ran and I did not bother anymore to watch it from a good spot. The reflections from the buildings and some fireworks peeping through were enough. We have been walking and standing for long already, we opted to just stay put for the the fireworks.

There are only two things that I think would make the parade better, moving forward.

One, there was an apparent lack of continuous flow from one float to the other, often cut when a float had to stop before the stage before moving forward. This caused stalling, and people for most part got bored while waiting for the next part of the parade to show up.

Second, and this one is rather personal: while understandably keeping-up with western models and the civil character of Christmas, if that is even a thing, it would be more attuned with Filipino culture if it did not leave out one important factor, which is the very reason for the celebrations. Having nothing in the parade that involves the Messiah makes the parade rather stale, if not totally out of tune.

Save for those two, it was a nice experience overall. It was able to drive the point anyway: that Christmas is a joyful season for both adults and young ones alike.