THE "BER" MONTHS
Stepping into shops and stores these days is a disconcerting experience for me. You know, walking in a place that has Halloween cardboard cut-outs of carved pumpkins pasted on the walls and hanging from ceilings, where votive candles in all shapes, colors, and sizes are piled in every nook, cranny and shelf, while "Dashing through the snow …" is blaring over the store's speakers. Somebody tell me, what's wrong with this picture.
Welcome to the "ber" months. The onset of September signals the beginning of the end of the year. The typhoon season blows cool winds in hot and humid Cebu's directions and we experience some cool evenings and mornings making it fun to cuddle under the sheets and stay in bed longer. We have our little guessing game when and where the first Christmas jingle will be played on the radio. At times it happens as early as the second week of September, other times not until the end of the month. But always the yuletide melodies are greeted with groans and frowns -- "Oh my, Christmas is here again and that means expenses!" Those watching their weight and diet are equally if not more apprehensive at the prospect of attending one party after another where greasy food, sweet desserts and alcohol are the standard fare.
We don't have to wait for December to come knocking on our doors, because the wallet-busting calorie-rich fun starts in October. To begin with bars, clubs, hotels, restaurants and beverage companies entice us to try their Oktoberfest specials. There are Oktoberfest-inspired banquets, rock concerts, and special discounts on all beer products.
All these seem to build up towards the biggest party at the end of the month -- Halloween. Who knows exactly when this Western tradition came to our shores but it's a sign of our "mental colony," … I mean, colonial mentality. Like the German-import Oktoberfest, trust in the capitalists to market these events so consumers will plunk more dough on their products and outlets. There are even midnight madness sales. Life was much simpler when we just scared each other with horror stories about kapres, manananggals, and ghostly white ladies -- but Ka Noli and the TV networks have taken over and commercialized and modernized this tradition, too.
Perhaps it was no coincidence that final exams week fall in October, and many students would be raring to let their hair down and release all that tension, raging hormones included. It's party 'till you drop. In my college dorm we had costume parties and there was always this shortage of toilet paper because most students come as Egyptian mummies, betraying a lack of imagination and money. Not to be outdone are the parents, the adults, who organize extravagant Halloween costume balls with their civic clubs, and I don't know what their excuse is if they're not teachers also celebrating the sem break.
Which is why the morning after Halloween -- All Saints' Day -- you can tell the ones who have NOT been partying. They're the early birds who troop to the cemeteries to pay their respects to their dear departed ones. These are the sensible ones who have the advantage of a good parking spot while avoiding the sun, traffic and crowds. But this is just a lull. As soon as the rest of Cebu is up all roads lead to the cemeteries.
It will strike foreign observers how irreverent we go about our business. Hordes of the living invade the memorial parks with tables and chairs, mats and tarpaulins, flowers and candles, and picnic baskets, ice coolers and cassette players. There are vendors selling everything from boiled peanuts and candles to pizzas, ice cream and newspapers. Somewhere the guys assigned to man the sound system for the mass are playing the latest dance tracks before and after the ceremony. In all cemeteries wily men and cops play the cat and mouse game of sneaking in and confiscating alcoholic drinks. In all cemeteries guys and gals exchange admiring and flirting glances with one another, albeit in a subdued manner..
We remember our dead on All Saints' Day, instead of All Souls' Day. In spite of the fiesta atmosphere that transform the cemetery grounds into a carnival, people take precious moments to gather around the graves of their departed ones, heads bowed in silent reflection. I have an uncle who passed away over 15 years ago and every year this former classmate of his comes to visit him. My mom and aunts would cluck over the untended, neglected graves of others whose relatives probably couldn't make it. They would put extra candles and flowers, and offer a few words of prayer. I have a friend, too, who doesn't have a dead relative to visit, so instead she visited all her friends who were visiting their dead relatives. She covered more cemeteries than any of us.
The next day, which is All Souls' Day, most people head for the shopping malls, briefly stopping at the cemetery to clean up the melted candles and check on the flowers. Their duties done, they now focus their thoughts on the next business at hand -- shopping for Christmas decorations. Brace yourself, we have the longest Christmas season which, in Cebu, doesn't wind down 'till after the Sinulog Mardi Gras -- Cebu's biggest commercial extravaganza -- in January, and weeks after that is Valentine's Day. Don't worry the stores, shops and restaurants, aided by ads on TV and the newspapers, won't let you forget it.
October 25, 1998