Filipino Christmas Culture Gets Amplified by Disney

WRITTEN BY FRANCESA JANA SANTIAGO

What better way to represent Christmas than with a Filipino family, right? The Philippines after all has the longest celebration of this holiday, starting as early as September. But in addition to that, Filipinos have a unique set of Christmas traditions too that amplify their familial values. That must be what Disney thought when they released From Our Family To Yours, a trilogy of shorts that follows a Filipino girl named Nicole and the festive stories she experiences during the season. These advertisements were made in support of the UK’s Make-A-Wish Foundation.

We meet Nicole through the first short, which was released back in 2020. There she is shown spending time with her lola through making parols and passing down gifts from generation to generation.

The next short entitled The Stepdad followed in 2021 with a now grown up Nicole introducing to her children Max and Ella their new stepfather.

The final installment of the trilogy is entitled The Gift, released this year, and here we see the family prepare for the arrival of a new baby amidst the anxiousness that change bounds to bring.

Other than easter eggs of beloved Disney characters, one can clearly see the authentic Filipino representation these shorts correctly embody— cultural sceneries, the moreno skin, the flat noses and the act of  pagmamano. But what makes this portrayal hit more at home is its depiction of immigrant life and how Filipinos all over the diaspora do their best to recreate the real PInoy celebration even miles away from their homeland. It’s through beloved family traditions and lifelong memories that holds people together as they grow through time.