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| New Year |
"Bisperas ng Bagong Taon" or the New Year's Eve celebration on December 31 is a grand feast celebrated by Filipinos where families gather for the much-anticipated "Media Noche" or midnight meal - a feast that symbolizes their hopes for a prosperous New Year. Traditionally, Filipinos meet the coming New Year with loud noises and sounds of merrymaking usually with firecrackers, banging on pots and pans, and blowing of horns which are all believed to cast out malevolent spirits. The jumping of children at the stroke of midnight in the hope that they will grow taller, the displaying of circular fruits and the wearing of clothes with dots and other circular designs to symbolize money and prosperity all through out the new year, the eating of twelve fruits at 12 midnight for good luck in the twelve months of the year, and opening of windows and doors during the first day of the New Year to let the good luck in are just but a few of the many customs and traditions that make the Filipino Christmas celebration fun and exciting!
