Rebentador Rock Paris

By Karla Quimsing

December 2025

Dear Mama,

We just bought a real Christmas tree from the flower shop at the corner. It smells fresh and dewy like a cool morning after a gentle tropical rain. Those Christmas plastic decorations sold in department stores over there in The Philippines are available at the florist’s here in Paris, as their real and fresh versions: evergreen garlands and wreaths, twigs of hollies, potted poinsettias, and different varieties of pine trees. They don’t wilt for weeks, even when removed from their roots. The cold and gloom of winter astoundingly preserve them. Winter is the one thing I will never get accustomed to but Christmas makes it bearable.

As ornaments for our tree, we would hang chocolates. Can you imagine chocolate balls and little Santa Clause chocolates hanging on a real Christmas Tree? They don’t melt at all. Even beside a string of sparkling lights they remain solid. There is no need to refrigerate chocolates here. Over there, we can’t leave it on the table even for a few minutes. The heat immediately turns it into mud-like lumps, or if not, the ants rapidly arrive and attack it.

My French professor, Jean-Marc, said that Christmas is “La belle moment du chocolat” or “The beautiful moment of chocolate.”  On two special occasions, Christmas and Easter, the window displays of the chocolateries around our neighborhood are insanely impressive. There could be a 4-foot-long train, a moving Ferris wheel, a 3-foot-tall Santa Claus, hanging snowflakes, and the façade of the Notre-Dame Cathedral. “Tous en chocolat”—everything in chocolate! The smell inside the chocolaterie is deliriously delicious. It’s a bit similar to the smell of my mother-in-law’s house in Cebu every time she makes champorado with tablea for the kids.

We set up the tree after dinner, listening to Max Surban’s Christmas album. His music lifted our spirits and brought us back home. Surban is Cebuano, just like your “favorite” son-in-law, as he proudly claims. I’d say Max Surban might be less famous than Yoyoy Villame, but I’m sure you’ve heard his song Rebentador Rock. Your favorite son-in-law and I sang along to it, while the kids didn’t quite understand the lyrics, they recognized the tune, which is similar to Jingle Bell Rock.

Rebentador, rebentador, rebentador rock,

inig ka pasko daghang mapahak.

Sigeg pabuto sa rebentador

bahala nag mga tudlo mapungkol.

Rebentador, rebentador, gamay kaayo

Kusog muboto busag dako ang gasto

Kon way swerte luoy kaayo

Sa ospital mamasko.

In The Philippines, the rebentador is a chain of firecrackers that erupts like a machine gun. This term originated from the Spanish reventador which literally means exploder. Surban describes it as a tiny firecracker that could make your fingers disappear with its powerful explosion. He also declares that it comes at an expensive price and if luck is not on your side, you will spend your Holidays in the hospital. The song echoes so many memories of Christmas in The Philippines.

Throughout my childhood, I was always on the street with cousins and friends playing with firecrackers every December. During the holiday season we can buy them easily from the sari-sari store or pak-pak in Parisian lingo. I have some unfortunate friends who lost their fingers or even their legs. I know it’s illicit, but I felt a sense of pride when I told my kids that I can hold a flaming firecracker with my bare hands for more than a minute. My cousins and I used to challenge each other to hold and shake the watusi with our bare hands. You never found out about this, and yes, I am aware that I am not being a good role model to my kids.

In French class, we were introduced to a long list of Christmas vocabulary words. We memorized the French terms for Santa Claus, reindeer, nativity, Christmas tree, chocolate, etcetera. If Jean Marc asked me to share Filipino Christmas terms, I would have shared firecracker names like rebentador, watusi, trianggulo, kwitis, kamara, kanyon-kanyon, since these words remind me of The Holidays when I was a child in my motherland.

I was young and single (and Lolo Moting and Tito Calbing were still alive) when I brought home to Iloilo a tall skinny long-haired Cebuano. It was on New Year’s Eve in your ancestral house, our home, in Zamora Street. He did not expect that our family party included your big clan and the entire Zamora neighborhood. Right in the middle of the street, our baranggay or community erected a 20-foot-tall Christmas tree made out of coconut husks. Below it was a life-size nativity scene and right beside it stood a gigantic sound system. That night, everyone was excited to talk to him. They spoke to him in Hiligaynon, a language he is familiar with but did not completely understand because he has a different mother tongue. The unfiltered socialization left him disoriented and anxious. Everyone was jolly and drunk, and they offered him food and alcohol.

He did not refuse any shots. His geek face with nerdy glasses was already red before midnight when you lit 12 candles, opened all the doors, and threw some coins around. You have always believed that this ritual will bring us luck and prosperity in the coming year.  At the stroke of midnight, the firecrackers went off. We rushed to the street, blowing horns, adding our own sound to the last boom of the year. Some of my uncles took out their guns and fired into the sky. We hugged and kissed each other. We wished everyone on the street a Happy New Year. Some of us were in tears: those who had lost a loved one, or those who had no choice now but to reconcile their differences. We went inside houses to greet grandparents who can’t go out to join the street party. It was emotional, it was noisy, and the air was filled with music and thick horrid smoke.

This communal celebration, as prophesized by Max Surban’s song, ended in a tragic trip to the hospital. My mischievous baby cousins with their friends collected residues of firecrackers from the street. They piled these to form a mini-volcano. And like an unexpected calamity, it accidentally exploded. The smallest cousin who was closest to the volcano burnt his eyelids and needed surgery. He could not open his eyes for 2 weeks. The leader of the notorious pack burnt his hands and the first layer of the skin of his face. When we found him, his hair was standing like he got electrocuted. In the emergency room at the hospital, the adults were overwhelmed by panic and shock, yet also intoxicated. It was a big mess. But when we share this story to our kids, we can’t help but explode into laughter. We can only talk about it with humor and so much joy. To be honest, I am not sure if they were traumatized or impressed.

This Christmas, we will hear the Misa del Gallo at The Notre-Dame de Paris. Can you please tell Papa that this Spanish term literally means Rooster’s Mass?  The kids thought he might find this amusing because he loves cockfighting like most Filipino men of his generation. I think the term suggests machismo but let’s keep this between us. And don’t worry, I did not say anything to the kids.

Our French-Filipino friends will take us in for the New Year’s Eve celebration, or La Fête de Fin d’Année. It’s quieter, less chaotic, and free of the usual firecracker haze. But no matter where we are on Earth, the Filipino spirit always shines through in song. Our celebration here in Paris wouldn’t be complete without karaoke. We eat, we drink, and we sing our hearts out. There is no other way to celebrate.

We look forward to your annual video calls on Christmas and New Year’s Eve in our family group chat. The street of Zamora has now transformed into a virtual screen, with different squares representing each of our family’s locations: Iloilo, Sunny Coast, New Jersey, and Paris. Thank you, Ma, for keeping us together.

Joyeux Noël,

Karla