For weeks on end, it has been a roller coaster of efforts gearing up for the Big Event that we at the Baguio Tourism Council have accepted to do, with hardly a month of readiness. Mayor Benjie, who’s co-chair of the BTC, has three simple words for us to be constantly reminded of. Simple but elegant. Tough nut to crack, everyone was telling us, but the call to level up the way we do things in our beloved city is just too irresistible to miss out.
A Baguio Christmas like no other, something that only Baguio can do, given its cooling climes at this time of the year, something that we thought was a challenge worth the effort to surmount, something that can give Baguio the singular and therefore unique entitlement as a topnotch tourist destination blessed with nurtured environmental resource.
A uniquely Baguio Christmas, that’s what the Baguio Tourism Council has been feverishly prepping up all these weeks. The goal is simply stated: give our people, and through our people, the world at large what Baguio Christmas is all about. One word kept us woven together: enchantment. Thus: An Enchanting Baguio Christmas.
With that as the singular thread touching us from the heart, we’ve put in place all events, programs, and activities to be planned that way, curated from a fine toothcomb, and meticulously looked over for the golden time of togetherness in celebrating Christmas. Not just from family to family, not just from friend to friend, but more from the benchmark of community togetherness, a coming out party expanded beyond limits for the outpouring of joy, caring, faith, hope, and love sparingly brought out from head to foot and everything in between.
There is supreme confidence as we release the final list of events and activities as part of the Christmas calendar interwoven into a 40-day festivity, beginning on November 24 at 5:30 in the afternoon at the fabled Rose Garden. This is when the Enchanted Baguio Christmas Fair formally opens for a premium exhibition of sorts of the best premium finds anywhere else in the country, replicating the legendary Christmas Market in vogue throughout Europe in recent years.
Event-wise, nothing beats the special performance that the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra will be gifting our people, courtesy of the Cultural Center of the Philippines which is bringing into our midst the 85-man musical group, as gratefully arranged by its president, Nick Lizaso. An evening of fine classical music awaits our residents and guests in this presentation kick-starting the 40-day Christmas Fair of bedecked chalets created from the ground up.
A day earlier, on November 23, at the same Rose Garden, the CCP will give us a memorable performance from the famed Bayanihan Dance Company, an institution in itself, and to be sure, a homecoming of sorts with some oldtimers who have once been part of the dancing troupe that has regaled us in ages well remembering.
The November activities actually presage the December lineup, topped of by the Grand Launching of Baguio Christmas, painstakingly prepped up to give us back the Singing Christmas Tree, this time at the Session Road rotunda. Switch-on ceremonies from city officials will give the downtown area — Session Road, Harrison Road, Burnham Park, the center-islands, the overpasses and flyovers and the bedecked buildings — the lights-up ambiance of Yuletide cheer, joys, and merriment. The annual SLU Lantern Parade proceeds from the formal opener, the entire Louisian community showcasing their prized insignia that has unmistakably been their proud share to the city. Lights and Sounds performances at the Malcolm Square takes place an hour later.
There is a bit of everything for everyone as more events and performances are listed up for unraveling in various venues, notably the Rose Garden, the Burnham Lake, the Melvyn Jones playing field, and the Peoples Park at the Malcolm Square. There is the Christmas cantata from the University of Baguio, the caroling concerts from the other universities, daily Anticipated Mass (Simbang Gabi from December 16-24, and many other spectacles meticulously chosen to be the December package.
We have been blessed from favorable feedback earned so generously so generously. We’re striving to do the task straight from the heart, knowing that hopes and expectations are at an all-time high. One thing we can be sure of at this time: we’re getting there, enchanted ourselves that this year’s Baguio Christmas will be one memorable, cherishing experience to last a lifetime.
A Christmas Fair the likes of which have yet to unfold, Light and Sounds synchronically dispensed like no other, well-lighted landscapes, bedecked trees, and well thought out projections audally and visually caressing the senses — all these promise to give residents, visitors and guests the unique experience of being there where it takes place, of being part of something good for treasure troves.
To our corporate and institutional sponsors who had gladness in their hearts to be one with us in presenting An Enchanting Baguio Christmas, do take a proud bow for standing by our side in this undertaking. We owe you for this signal honor of being with each other — San Miguel Corporation, Phoenix Fuels, Ongkoleyt, Victory Liner, Steel Asia, Canto, Smart, Globe, Baguio Country Club, SM Baguio, The Manor at Camp John Hay. MARAMING, MARAMING SALAMAT PO!
To our residents, let us be reminded that what we’re doing is for our city. Do help us make Baguio at Christmastime, truly at its finest moments, when the sights, the sounds, the shrieks fill the air, when people of all ages defy barriers to soak in the thrills of oneness under one sky, when family ties get renewed in forgiveness and let-go feelings, when friendships and old flames receive newly-lit embers. This is what An Enchanting Baguio Christmas is all about, when heart and soul we are unerringly one.
To our visitors and guests, this is our chance to tell you that there’s more to Baguio than Panagbenga, the summertime thrills, and everything in between. The best time to be up here is Christmastime, when friendships are re-lit by luminous embers, when reunions notch up in warmth, when places and people become part of a Christmas memory worth re-living any good time at all, when Baguio’s environment makes possible the blessings of cooler climes, when sunflowers burst out of our mountainsides, when everything nice becomes possible by our disciplined caring for what makes Baguio a lovely mountain haven without peer. This is what An Enchanting Baguio Christmas is all about, when you and I are soulmates beyond reproach.
In the end, it is a once-in-a-lifetime treat that all of us deserve by the breath of fresh air sweeping across the city. At day’s end, it’s about bidding farewell to bygone memories, saying hello to resurrected experiences only Baguio can exude.
If eternally, there is this kind of truth that must be told and retold: Baguio is Baguio, the mountain resort that has filled every ordinary Filipino’s dream to visit and spend well-managed time to be here, every ordinary family’s aspiration to have memorable visits every now and then, summertime or not. Baguio remains to be a topnotch getaway destination, its cooling climes enough to lure them in at the slightest pretense.
In its fullest essence, Baguio’s allure is the natural environment, something tourists worldwide and nationwide cannot find anywhere else. It’s our mountain resources — the pristine forests, the flowering plants dotting the mountain sides, the majestic thrusts that our pine trees make in an enduring reach-out struggle, the grand panorama of sceneries unmatched anywhere, and the jovial welcoming faces that our own folks are winsomely making manifest anytime.
When despair seeps in, it is time for hope. Amid sadness, there’s joy; against bickering, let there be peace and much of love magically shared from heart to heart. That’s why we’re all in this together.