Christmas and New Year in Talakag

First of all I would like to apologise to everyone, who have been following Talbuks Cafe, for failing to update this Blog regularly as promised. For the last three months I have been busy organising our relocation back to Talakag. Finally we have arrived (yeheyyyy!) and starting to settle into rural living.

Yes I know! - Christmas and New Year celebrations are well over - but I couldn’t get back into blogging again without sharing my observations of Christmas and New Year in Talakag as a returning resident. Better late than never - so please bear with me.

The Catholic church bells ringing early in the morning for the nine days of “misa de gallo” have now been replaced by very loud music (I think it’s by Jose Marie Chan but I’m not sure). As I live quite close to the plaza, this is something that I will have to get used to.

Nowadays the Christmas Basketball League is played in the newly built covered Gym in the Plaza - so the games can go on rain or shine! The players seem to be taller than I can remember. What are they feeding these youngsters nowadays? I believe the winning team was Miarayon.

The Christmas Carol Singing Contest is getting really serious - with professional trainers hired for music and choreography, even the judging criteria has become tougher than ever. The winners were from Barangay 2, who also won it last year. As for the Christmas Lantern Contest, the entries are getting more creative and the designs becoming bolder.

One thing new to me this time is the Christmas Tree Decoration Contest. The trees around the Plaza were decorated with various lights, lanterns and other trimmings of different colours and sizes. What a sight!

New Year’s Eve celebrations in the Plaza started with a Dance Contest, followed by a Fancy Dress Contest and then by midnight - a loud and colourful Fireworks Display (courtesy of the Mayor and LGU) was witnessed by a cheering crowd. Nowadays, the sounds of firecrackers seem normal. These were forbidden in the celebrations that we have awhile back in the 80’s - one could end up in prison if caught in the act. How times have changed!

Best Wishes for 2009!