We used to wait for December with a familiar, almost physical anticipation. The arrival of the cold months meant pulling out sweaters, pajamas, and thicker clothes from the back of the cabinet—not as fashion statements, but as signals that Christmas had truly arrived.
Wearing them felt like an invitation to step outside: to walk beneath parols glowing along the streets, to greet neighbors, to attend Simbang Gabi before dawn, or to linger in quiet prayer as the night air wrapped gently around us.
Back then, December evenings had a pulse. Children chased each other in churchyards and plazas, clutching toy balloons and sparklers. Homes filled with the smell of bibingka and puto bumbong, hot chocolate simmering on the stove, ham freshly sliced for the table.
The cool air slowed everything down. Sweaters were practical, but they were also emotional—soft armor against the cold, and a reminder that the season asked us to pause, to gather, to savor.
Even without snow, the Philippines used to feel cold during Christmas. We shivered during late-night walks and early-morning masses, pretending the invisible snow was real as the Amihan wind cut through our sleeves. That chill was part of the magic.
It sharpened the music drifting from radios, made the lights on Christmas trees glow warmer in modest living rooms, and turned small rituals into something intimate and deliberate. December felt distinct, set apart from the rest of the year.
Now, that cold has quietly disappeared.
December to February, once our brief season of relief from the tropical heat, increasingly feels like an extension of summer. Sweaters remain folded. Long sleeves feel unnecessary, even uncomfortable. Nights no longer invite lingering walks or long conversations outside; instead, they press against the skin with a warmth that feels heavy and restless.
The change is not announced dramatically. It reveals itself in small, persistent details—in how quickly people head home, in how Simbang Gabi no longer requires layering, in how the air barely cools after sunset.
This shift is one of the most personal ways Filipinos experience climate change. Rising temperatures are often discussed in statistics and forecasts, but their impact is felt most clearly in memory. The cold months once gave December its rhythm.
Cool nights encouraged reflection, patience, and togetherness. They slowed time just enough to make space for tradition. As warming weather erases that contrast, the season feels faster, less grounded, less distinct from the rest of the year.
Our unused sweaters have become quiet markers of this transformation. They remind us of a time when Christmas mornings were crisp, when breath felt different at dawn Mass, when warmth came from shared food and close company rather than from the air itself.
They carry memories of carols sung late into the night, family reunions that only happened once a year, and childhood excitement that seemed inseparable from the cold.
Yet Christmas persists, even as the climate changes. Parols still shine in windows and streets. Families still gather around crowded tables. Laughter still rises above the noise of the season, and familiar songs still find their way into our homes.
The absence of cold does not erase these things, but it does remind us that something fundamental has shifted in the background of our lives.
Perhaps this warmer December asks for a different kind of awareness. Climate change is no longer an abstract future threat; it is already reshaping our seasons, our habits, and our collective memory. The loss of the cold is subtle, but it is deeply felt—because it alters how we experience tradition, how we remember our childhood, and how we mark time itself.
Even so, December remains. The lights still glow. The songs still play. The meaning of Christmas endures, carried not by temperature, but by people. And in remembering the cold we once had, we are reminded of what is at stake—not just the weather, but the textures of memory and tradition that make a season feel whole.
If our sweaters now stay folded, perhaps they serve a new purpose: a quiet reminder of how the world is changing, and why caring for it matters, so future Decembers may once again feel different from the rest of the year.
