What are “Ber Months” and what do they mean to Filipinos?
WRITTEN BY: FRANCESA JANA SANTIAGO
You better watch out and you better not cry… because the Ber Months have finally arrived!
If you have no idea what that means, it’s simply the Filipino term for “the Christmas season”, and whether or not we’re already in the festive mood, there’s nothing that can stop this phenomenon from coming into the Filipino community! It’s already a known fact that the Philippines has the longest Christmas celebration in the world. The Ber Months occur during September until December but will only officially end mid-January. Before then, most Filipino families will start playing carols around the house, others will write grocery lists for their Noche Buena and some may already be phoning their relatives asking them when they’ll be coming home- all as early as September 1st.
To know the reason as to why Filipinos celebrate this specific holiday very early and very long, we’ll have to trace history back to colonial times. Faith plays a huge part in this whole spectacle because when the Spaniards arrived, they introduced Catholicism to the Filipinos along with the concept of “fiestas”. As part of their teachings and being a dominantly-catholic country, Filipinos would spend Ber Months attending a series of midnight masses called “Simbang Gabi”, all before Christmas Eve wherein the final mass “Misa de Gallo” will be held. Not only that, but for the longest time Filipinos didn’t celebrate western holidays such as Halloween or Thanksgiving so the community collectively grew accustomed to prioritizing Christmas.
Over the time, the Ber Months have grown more commercialized as businesses played into the anticipation of Filipinos, prompting them to invest so much on food, gifts, decorations and even trips. Employees will work to the bone to get their Christmas bonuses and for Filipinos abroad, Ber Months are also used as a time to pack Balikbayan Boxes filled with goodies to send back to the motherland. Regardless, the center point of Ber Months is still family and out of all the holidays that the Philippines celebrates, nothing can reunite Filipino families more than Christmas. Even non-Catholic or atheist Filipinos get the chance to rest and be with their loved ones thanks to the season’s government-declared free days.
Foreigners will see this as an exaggerated form of excitement or a product of colonization. But for Filipinos, this is considered tradition. You see, the Ber Months are not only about putting up parols and nativity scenes or stress-cleaning your whole house because the extension of your family is coming over… it is also an embodiment of the Filipino community, a manifestation of our love for festivities and an event that brings out our best cultural traits such as hospitality, dedication to the family, and in some cases because Christmas season is also typhoon season, generosity and quickness to respond to help.
How about you… what does Christmas mean to you?