By: Modesto P. Sa-onoy
For Filipinos, the Christmas tree is as old as the American rule and influence in this country. Wherever one goes during this season, no matter how humble the abode is, there is a Christmas tree, many of them made from a nearby shrub, dotted with cotton and adorned with anything that glitters.
In the advent of malls, the small Christmas trees in grocery and department stores gave way to bigger ones. Now we have supergiant Christmas trees in malls. Not to be outdone, local governments and big business establishments have them with multi-colored lights.
We can expect the same kind of trees every Christmas season. But not Megaworld when it inaugurated in a lighting ceremony its Christmas Forest last December 11 at its new posh subdivision along the Circumferential Road. It was not a small decorated tree, but 250 Christmas trees – thus the name “forest”.
The multi-colored lighted trees of the season are spread out on its main road at Forbes Hill and “transformed” the area of this premier residential village in Bacolod, close to its border with Talisay City, into a veritable place to visit at night particularly. The “forest” can still be a delight even during the daytime.
The Christmas Forest is easily accessible to the residents of Talisay and Silay Cities. However, people commuting between Bacolod and other cities and towns north of Bacolod can simply take a little diversion (no traffic snarl to boot) by passing through the Bacolod Silay Airport Access Road.
The Christmas Forest is the first of its kind in Bacolod, but one should see them personally to really appreciate how a small tree can enliven a moment and capture them in photographs for remembrance or sent out into cyberspace.
Christmas trees are normally evergreen and pines or their imitations but one that attracted me best in this Christmas Forest is because its white, decorated like any other, but it comes out with a different kind of glow. It is like a tree covered with snow and yet glittering with lights of different colors and hues.
According to Jeniffer Palmares-Fong, vice president for sales and marketing of Megaworld, “this is the first time for Bacolod City to have a park filled with hundreds of Christmas trees.” She is right but this is also true not only in Bacolod but in this province as well. She said this is “our way of celebrating Christmas in Megaworld. While others are into putting giant Christmas trees and dancing lights, we thought of introducing something unique and different in Forbes Hill.”
Indeed, not only unique but the first of its kind and could inspire others to follow suit, especially in public plazas instead of merely lighting up the trees around or one giant Christmas tree. At least the many Christmas trees challenge imagination and creativity. It would be appropriate, though, if a Nativity Scene was at its center because Christ is the reason for Christmas. Without Him and the Holy Family, what have we got?
The Christmas Forest is open throughout the season, according to Megaworld. The lights are switched on from 5:30 in the afternoon and open until ten in the evening. Naturally, this is the best time for photos and videos although even in the daytime the Forest is still sight and, in fact, reveals what they are made of. That would be good for those who will be inspired to build their own Christmas Forest for next year.
Forbes Hill has an unobstructed view of the Mandalagan and Marapara Mountain Range and with them the beauty of a lush forest. That night during the inaugural lighting, the lights of Campuestohan Highland Resort sparkled at the mountainside like, what Shakespeare described as “a jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.”
Forbes Hill is a 15-hectares “first upscale village inside the Northill Gateway, one of Megaworld’s two townships in Bacolod.” The other one I wrote about before is in the former site of Bacolod Murcia-Milling Company that is now being transformed into a “first-class mixed used-use community.” It is now taking form and on schedule, will change the Bacolod cityscape two years from now. A passerby at Lopez-Jaena will be able to take a sneak view of this once of a kind “community” in Bacolod, a modern central business district.
Take time with the family to see something different, hundreds of Christmas trees.
