Q 01/05

What do Filipinos popularly call the months when radio stations start playing Christmas songs?

A) The ber months

B) The Advent months

C) The Undas months

D) The parol months

Answer · why

A) The ber months

The ber months, September to December, are when Christmas trees and decorations go up, giving the Philippines four months of festivities.

Q 02/05

Pasko, the Filipino word for Christmas, comes from Spanish pascua, which most often names which other holiday?

A) Easter

B) New Year's Day

C) All Saints' Day

D) Carnival

Answer · why

A) Easter

Easter is what pascua usually means, yet Spanish speakers also wish 'Felices Pascuas' at Christmas, and Filipinos borrowed that sense as Pasko.

Q 03/05

Where did the first documented Philippine Christmas celebration take place, in 1565?

A) Intramuros, Manila

B) Limasawa, Southern Leyte

C) Fort San Pedro, Cebu

D) Bolinao, Pangasinan

Answer · why

C) Fort San Pedro, Cebu

Fort San Pedro, Cebu, hosted it because Legazpi's expedition had just built that fort, the first Spanish foothold in the islands, on arriving in 1565.

Q 04/05

A disputed legend says a friar named Odoric held a Christmas Mass in Bolinao in what year?

A) 1521

B) 1565

C) 1024

D) 1324

Answer · why

D) 1324

Historians Ambeth Ocampo and William Henry Scott reject it, though a plaque went up at Bolinao Church in 2007.

Q 05/05

Simbang Gabi is a series of how many dawn Masses leading up to Christmas?

A) Two

B) Four

C) Nine

D) Forty

Answer · why

C) Nine

Nine dawn Masses make up Simbang Gabi, and many believe completing all of them grants a wish, a belief a Catholic bishop called a misconception in 201...