Four Dawn Masses Down, Five to Go — Epoche A2
4 a.m. in Quezon City, and I am walking to church for the fourth time this week. This is Simbang Gabi: nine Masses at dawn, one every morning from 16 to 24 December. You are meant to finish all nine. Miss one and you start again next year. Friends abroad laugh at us for playing Christmas songs on 1 September. That morning is the first of the "-ber months" — September, October, November, December — and the malls change their music before I have finished my coffee. People say it is the shops being greedy early. Here is the thing. Our Christmas does not stop on 25 December either. It runs to the Feast of the Three Kings in January. It is the longest Christmas in the world at both ends, not only at the start. And a long season is not a long advertisement. It is why nine dawn Masses can exist at all. You cannot fit nine early mornings into one week of shopping. You need a season with room in it. So: four down, five to go. My mother has done all nine, every year, for as long as I can remember. Outside the church there is hot ginger tea, and my cousin is saving me a place. See you at four tomorrow. #SimbangGabi