Last night I was fortunate enough to be part of the Christmas Season kickoff program at the Greenhills Shopping Center. My friends and I helped in entertaining 300 street children and students from different parts of San Juan, with lots of games, prizes and attractions, the grandest of which was front row seats to the first night of the C.O.D., Christmas on Display moving mannequin show. This sent me into a fit of nostalgia again as I still remember watching this Christmas spectacle as a child with my parents.
Whenever Christmas approached, my parents would take me to COD Department Store along Avenida, then later on Cubao, the original locations of the display before it was adopted by Greenhills Shopping Mall. There was something about the synchronized lights and music and dancing figures that had people watch on in awe, myself included, of course. It was always free to watch: one just needed to have a place ready at a distance to watch it from. The show ran for several minutes and had shows several times a night.
This year’s display featured an “Oriental Christmas” theme, with a good number of mannequins of soldiers, horses, even a dragon. The sets and backgrounds were also well crafted and brilliantly lighted, adding to the delight of the spectacle. It ran for several minutes and was warmly appreciated by the crowd.
Jaime Rivera was there to share a few Christmas songs to set up the mood. Also, Alex Rosario, owner of C.O.D. and the one who had the concept of the well-beloved Christmas display, was there to give a short talk about it. On his wheelchair he described how it has become a passion for him that has been shared to his family and through the Filipino people has become a tradition for many decades since 1957. He said that the display had weathered many calamities and many challenges, which is why he was happy to still see it running and bringing happiness to young and old alike.
For those of my generation and the ones before me, the COD show is as much a Christmas tradition as puto bumbong and bibingka in an era without Imax (or SM for that matter). I had wondered how today’s children though about it. I looked beside me and saw the amazed faces of the street children and students invited to watch it and I realized that, perhaps, enjoying the decades-old COD Christmas show was indeed special and universal.
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