Family Traditions

My Aunt's, especially my Lola, were the kind of people who sets many traditions in our whole wide family. She always complains about how today's generation abducted such traditions. My Aunts's also are tradition keepers, they are the ones who followed our grandmother.

Family Traditions

1.) Fiestas
 Every April 4 and 5 of the year, our grandmother loved to cook for  our "handa". For her, fiestas should always be celebrated to pay respect for our patron. Our patron is Sr. San Vicente Ferrer at Piapi Beach, Dumagute City.

2.) Aguinaldo Mass
  The most awaited tradition in our family when December is approaching. Nothing is more-worth waking up at 3 am in the morning and experience straight 9 days of Aguinaldo Mass. Many have said that if you completed the 9 mornings, your one wish will be granted.

3.) Christmas 
Christmas is the best time for the whole family. It is truly the time to be jolly. As for our family, we believed that we should stay at home before 12 midnight so that our Christmas would be as merry as it is. We would eat together and do the annual Christmas party and exchanging gifts.

4.) Mananita or Birthday Serenade
Whenever someone at home is celebrating his/her birthday, we make it a point to stay up. We would woke up at 3 am in the morning and will cook "puto" and "tsokolate".  We would also add up a bouquet of flowers so that the celebrant would feel more special. 


5.) San Jose
This name may always represent a town or a place, but we call this as our tradtion. Also in March or April, aside from fiesta, we also celebrate our San Jose every year. This is an enactment of the Holy Family, baby Jesus, Mama Mary and Papa Joseph. Most likely with fiesta, we also cook and prepare dishes. The only difference is there is the so called, "Manalabtan", the ones who would sang a Latin and dialect songs about God. 

6.) Christening and Confirmation
Christening and confirmation is also a must tradition in our family, since we are pure Catholics  We always believe that babies are blessings so they should receive a "basbas" from our priests. When we grow up, we are intended to have a confirmation. It is still like baptizing but this time, priests are putting a cross sign on our forehead. I was confirmed last 2010.

7.) Marriage
We Catholics honors marriage. We believed that it should still be practiced nowadays, because couples now are used in "LIVE IN". We should at least be blessed by our church. We believed that if two couples lived in the same roof without marriage is useless. 

8.) Kamayan
We always love eat together with the whole family that's why recently, we discovered "Boodle Fight" and it became our family tradition every 2nd or 3rd Sunday of the month.


These are all the traditions we have in our family. Our other members in the family maybe far from us, (went to abroad or seek for greener pasture anywhere in the country) but that doesn't mean we would forget all the traditions we had. Our traditions reminds us of our ancestors and where we come from.