A Filipino Christmas. A diorama depicting the Filipino tradition of lantern making is displayed outside the Blue Eagle Gym. Photo by Mario T. Dagdag

SOMETHING NEW comes to the Ateneo this holiday season.

Huge parols, blue and white lanterns and a series of tableaus depicting different Filipino Christmas traditions will welcome the Ateneo community and visitors as they enter the campus.

This is part of the Loyola Schools Christmas Park 2011, a new school project that aims to promote a sense of community and celebrate the Christmas season through the community-wide assemblage of yuletide-themed tableaus and other decorations.

University president Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ, issued a memo requesting the university community to take part in the project.

Each unit of the university was assigned to depict a theme in line with Filipino Christmas traditions. “Simbang Gabi” was the assigned theme for the Loyola Schools.

The project was launched last November 19 at the Bellarmine Field to coincide with Lights for Hope, Ateneo’s Christmas outreach program for children of indigent families.

New University tradition. A creative display of puto bumbong and bibingka and bibingka sits outside the Manila Observatory as part of this year's LS Christmas Parks. Photo by Pia B. Guballa

“A new tradition”

The Christmas parks are new installations for this year’s Christmas season. Apart from the usual Christmas lights, there have been no such decorations put up in previous years.

“Since Fr. Jett [Villarin] is our new president, we felt that it would be a nice way of starting his term by perhaps creating a new tradition,” said University Communication and Public Relations Office Director Sonia Araneta.

“We really don’t have [something] that brings the whole community together so we’re giving it a try this year,” Araneta said.

“It’s also a way of building community… because, during the year, we’re basically just in our offices and doing our own work, but this is like time away from that [to] just enjoy each other’s company.”

In line with the university’s environmental efforts, the project was envisioned to be eco-friendly through the use of indigenous, recyclable, organic and inexpensive materials.

For instance, many tableaus utilized bamboo, hay, palm, old newspapers, old bottle caps and soccer balls.

Each park is approximately 200 square meters and is composed of a tableau, a write-up on the assigned tradition, and blue and white lanterns, which will connect all the parks together.

According to Araneta, the parks are situated along the main roads of the university, to be in view of visitors passing through Gates 2 and 3. The parks also converge towards the Church of the Gesù.

Belated plans

Despite the presence of different Ateneo units in the creation of the tableaus, Araneta said that more parks were originally intended.

“Actually, each unit is represented by the different stakeholders, so it should [have included] the students. The thing is, we kind of hatched it belatedly, sometime in October, so there was no time,” she said.

Joanna Ruiz, Coordinator for Communications of the Office of the Vice President of the Loyola Schools, said that the memo was released unexpectedly and out of the blue.

To compensate, promotions for the project were done extensively online, through the Ateneo de Manila University Facebook page and the LS Christmas Park 2011 Facebook page.

Although also open to the student body, there was a general lack of involvement among the students in the creation of the parks.

Only one student and one faculty member participated in the project: sophomore Alphe Marfa and Junjun Valdez, PhD of the Biology Department, respectively.

Marfa said that she learned of the Christmas Park from an email and became interested in the project.

“I thought of it as another venue for me to help and share my skills and time in making the campus a beautiful park just in time for Christmas.”

Marfa helped in cleaning and setting up the lanterns placed in the bamboo sticks.

Response to the Christmas parks has been positive since its launch last November 19.

An album posted on the Ateneo de Manila Facebook page, containing photos of the tableaus lit up at night, has earned 295 “likes” and has been shared more than 70 times as of press time.

“The university is making the most out of its wide, vacant space… Seeing the Ateneo light up every night feels very uplifting. The decorations and the lights relax you from the day’s stress,” Marfa said.

Sophomore Derrick Jason Fabian added, “Aesthetics-wise, they look well-prepared and very festive so as to bring people in the Christmas spirit. I think it serves its purpose as an attraction to students and passers-by, and it adds to the yearly beauty of the campus during Christmas season.”