AJ Rafael's Christmas Series - "Pasko Na Sinta Ko"

by Jonathan Hernandez

Christmas is just a few days away and while images of fir trees, stockings, snow, and Santa Claus typically dominate many people's collective perception of Christmas, it's always nice to remember how we as Pilipinos add our own unique flavor to this holiday that we appropriately like to call 'Pasko'. It's that time of the year for Pilipinos when the colorful and bright parols beautifully line the streets of Manila, when the Pilipino fiestas centered around food, singing, and dancing seem to happen every night, when church and spirituality play integral roles in everyone's sincere reflection of the holiday, and when our very own tagalog Christmas songs manage to effectively stir up just as much holiday spirit as their American counterparts.

To set us off in just the right mood, with just the right touch of 'Pilipino-ness', here's our friend AJ Rafael with his own tagalog offering of the Christmas song 'Pasko Na Sinta Ko', first made popular by popular Pilipino artists such as Gary Valenciano and Lea Salonga:

There's always something more meaningful and special about hearing a song in one's own native language and A.J. Rafael truly demonstrates this through his heart-felt and stirring version of this tagalog Christmas classic. So as we near ever closer to our own respective 'Happy Holiday', let's not fail to forget the Pilipino spirit and culture that can often get overshadowed by all the commercialized images of gifts, snowmen, and tall green trees...because in the Philippines, we roll with palm trees. Ok, not really, but that would be cool, wouldn't it?