The rush for Christmas parols

Parols on display at the Freedom Park in Carbon.

As Christmas nears, more and more holiday decorations are sold in sidewalks, markets and stores.

At Freedom Park in Cebu City’s biggest market, Carbon, one store particularly stands out.

Market goers are drawn to a stall for its owner’s interesting experiment with recycled materials.

Wilfredo Caburnay, 58 years old, sells Christmas lanterns that are made out of scrap metal and other junk sold to him by fellow vendors in Carbon.

The resident of Barangay Kalunasan has been a vendor at Freedom Park for more than three decades since 1984 selling knick-knacks, old coins, and feathered angel wings for children.

He arrives in Carbon Market at around 7 in the morning and closes his stall at 6 p.m.

Each December, he joins the bandwagon of making Christmas ornaments that are highly in demand.

Last year, he was able to sell three of his metal lanterns, priced at P1,500 each.

According to Caburnay, not only are his lanterns bigger than those that are commonly available; but the use of metal parts also makes them more durable than the others.

“Mada gani nas kawayan, unsa nalang kung kanang tubo sa payong?” (If a bamboo can hold a lantern, how much more for the metal tube of an umbrella),” Caburnay said of his star-shaped Christmas lanterns or parol, with a hint of pride in his voice.

The star itself is made up of 13 umbrella poles taken from broken umbrellas owned by vendors at the public market.

The poles are clamped by several wires.

Wilfredo Caburnay looks pensively at his unfinished lantern.

At the center of the star is an electric fan cover which he bought for 20 pesos from garbage collectors.

Two empty water bottles hang at the tip of the star.

The parol is painted with the Christmas colors: green, red and gold. He spends around P270 for the paint.

The building process takes him less than an hour, said Caburnay, explaining that it all started with him making a parol out of scrap metal just for himself.

Upon seeing the unique lantern hanging in his store, several customers asked him if it was for sale.

“Para gamit unta nas bay, naibgan man nila. Mao nang akong gibaligya (It was supposed to be just for the house, but people liked it, so I decided to sell it.),” said Caburnay.

Caburnay also thought of making his own lanterns when a former supplier of native parols found a new job and stopped selling to him.

Aside from Caburnay, many other Freedom Park vendors diversify their business during the holidays.

Mila Inesola, 53 years old, a flower vendor for 20 years, is one of them.

Although Inesola owns a flower shop, she displays colorful parols made in Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City, at the start of December.

Inesola orders parols from her supplier as early as October and then sells them for P10 more than the cost she spent for buying each lantern.

Inesola noted that she could earn as much as P10,000 if she is able to sell one thousand Christmas lanterns for the whole month of December.

“Mahalin man gyud na ang mga lanterns kay season man gud (The lanterns always get sold because they are in season.),” said Inesola, who studied Tourism in a university across Carbon but dropped out on her second year to work abroad.

After eight years as OFW (overseas Filipino worker), Inesola came home to the Philippines to start the flower shop business that she still runs until today.

“Mas nindot man gud ang negosyo, kay kung laing trabaho mag agad pa kas sweldo (Having a business is so much better because a job always depends on salary),” she said.

At the Carbon Public Market, there are hundreds of others like Inesola and Caburnay — all with different stories to tell.

But the Yuletide season results in a similarity among them: The rush to earn an extra buck from colorful Christmas decorations that most Filipino families can’t do without.