Light and warmth at Ayala Triangle

Families in search of entertainment in this interim period between Christmas and New Year need not go too far or spend too much to enjoy themselves.

Tuesday evening, we decided to eat dinner out to take up an offer from the hubby made, I suspect, in a sudden spurt of generosity. I had long heard about the “light show” at the Ayala Triangle and took the chance to combine a free meal with free entertainment. With us were my sister Charo, vacationing from her post as a school principal in Alaminos, Pangasinan, and my brother Father Boboy, who was about to leave for a short vacation in the United States. But Father Boboy, who was staying with my sister-in-law Coratec and her sons, brought them along, too. So what started out as a simple outing turned into a semi-reunion!

Ayala Triangle proved to be chock-full of entertainment seekers. Tellingly, there were many families among them, including entire clans made up of grandparents, adult children and grandchildren. My nephews, Bengel and Jami, had made reservations at a number of restaurants in the Triangle, but when we got there we were No. 46 at the Kanin Club! (A side note: I have never seen Kanin Club at the Triangle empty whenever we went there, so popular has it become.) The numbers weren’t any better at the other places where we were reserved, and with 11 of us in the group, our chances of snagging an empty table looked pretty slim.

Anyway, we decided to go ahead and watch the show. Father Boboy had staked out a place for us where we could at least sit and behold the lights while we snacked on dried spicy dilis. As we waited for the light show to begin, we had fun people- and dog-watching. Most eye-catching was a white full-size French poodle whose owners paraded him (her?) even as little children couldn’t help but approach and stroke its fur.

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Ayala Triangle puts on its light show every 30 minutes or so, which lasts a mere 10 minutes. But the synchronized blinking and flashing of the parols, LED bulbs and tiny Tivoli lights is simply amazing!

Set to different arrangements of beloved traditional carols and pop Christmas songs, the show elicited oohhs and aahhs from the folk gathered beneath the trees and leaning against the slim tree trunks.

It was a magical moment: sitting with one’s family and loved ones in the darkness, mesmerized by a dazzling display of lights and changing colors, while the voices of children playing tag and family members needling each other underscored both the intimacy of the experience and its communal nature.

After two light shows, it was time to worry about dinner. Alas, even after more than an hour, we were still about No. 40 on the Kanin Club’s waiting list. We decided to cross Paseo de Roxas via the underground pedestrian walkway to the Paseo Center which houses a number of eateries. Even there, it was a tight fit since all the establishments were full. But thank you, Pho, for accommodating our big, hungry group!

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What a stroke of marketing genius, I thought. The light show, as well as the street decorations festooning lampposts and building façades, draws not just Makati executives and office-goers but families from all over the metropolis.

It boosts business at the various establishments around the BCD, true, but it also creates a warm, friendly atmosphere during an already warm, friendly season. This perhaps is where the private sector can best contribute to national growth—or just national happiness. It can create spaces to foster social interaction, draw families together, give people reason to gather and bask in a shared experience.

The Ayala Triangle light show is but part of a continuum of public Christmas events that punctuated my childhood and that of my children. I remember piling into the family sedan to join my siblings in visiting the “robot” and “spaceship” that used to sit in the vast frontyard of Admiral Appliances (it’s where Robinson Mall on E. Rodriguez is rising now). Later, we would walk a few blocks from our Cubao home to COD Department Store where the annual “animated” show of motorized mannequins was staged. (It’s now to be found in the Greenhills Shopping Center.)

While watching the Ayala Triangle light display, my adult daughter reminisced about the times we would “drive around Makati just to look at the Christmas displays.” How comforting to know that despite technological advances and digital dazzlers in home computers (and even phones!), we can still lose ourselves momentarily in simple shows of synchronized lighting.

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There are other free seasonal shows around the Metro that are open to the public, I am told. Over at the Mall of Asia, there’s a lighted parade of winged creatures and fairies staged every weekend. Coratec recommends dropping by the grounds of the Meralco building where there is a literally blinding display of light effects.

I am afraid my husband and I no longer have the requisite energy to go around the city with our children in tow, braving the crazy traffic. But I am hoping that when their turn comes, our children will do right by their kids and make the effort. How often, after all, does an occasion like Christmas come round and offer us free delights and public enjoyments?

That is one of the best things about Christmas in the Philippines, among Filipinos. There is a shared sense of community and family, of “history” made up of personal memories and common experiences, be they partaking of Dawn Masses or trekking to church for the Midnight Mass. As a people, we may be strewn across the globe in search of fortune that still eludes us at home. But in remembering, we are together.