In the Philippines, the most amazing Christmas lanterns are made in the province of Pampanga.
The Christmas lanterns called parol are great circles of color. Sometimes they look like stars with many twinkling oints. Sometimes they are blossoms of light.
Yet like the traditional Christmas lanterns all over the Philippines, the simple ones can be made even only with bright tissue paper or cellophane stuck on a frame.
In the great Pampanga lantern, it is the frame that makes all the difference. It is fancy, all curls and curlicues made of wire. Each space is covered with different colors, bright as the rainbow, dazzling as the stars. Yet there is no set pattern saying where to put the colors. Each lantern-maker knows how best to put the colors together.
The great lantern is made only on special order. The orders are placed as early as January when the work begins for the next Christmas.
The lanternmakers do not keep their designs secret. Yet it isn’t easy to copy them. It takes talent — and the confidence of tradition, which the Pampanga craftsmen have. They have been making lanterns for years and years as their grandparents did before them.
