Christmas at the Palace
CHRISTMAS IN MALACAÑAN PALACE – THE NATION’S home – is, in some ways, just like Christmas in any other Pinoy home.
The first thing that social secretary Susan Reyes points out is that the materials are all recycled. Just like in most homes, December means bringing out boxes of Christmas décor collected through the years. Sometimes, Reyes says, they add a little something new to refresh thes:
look, or change the placement of each piece to make the decorations feel new again. As the years pass, it becomes more and more challenging to do this, but the team always comes up with creative ways to recycle and stick to their budget.
For the first two years of the Aquino administration, Reyes says, they hired designers to decorate the palace.
However, on the third year, they decided to have a more personal touch to the Palace holiday and decorate the halls themselves. The able team, led by Jun Mugado, was certainly up for the task.
Mugado has been with the Palace for some 28 years, but demures, saying he has no formal training in interior design. Despite this, he and his team make up for whatever lack of training with invaluable experience.
They have been decorating the Palace halls for important events and state dinners, including the
biggest to date – the state dinner for US President Barack Obama in April 2014, where the motif was “harvest.”
“The theme is always Filipino,” says Reyes.
Christmas is no exception, with materials like rattan, sinamay, raffia, wicker, various seeds and berries. The design team scours Divisoria, Dangwa and Quiapo for their materials.
Planning for the year’s holiday décor starts just before the “ber” months, in August. Mugado starts with sketches, then renders them on the computer to show the team the planned designs.
Each member is then given an assignment to concentrate on, assembling the needed materials. The actual decorating takes some five to six days.
Rene Sumalinog and Nick Reza, both florists, were in charge of the table décor, which feature small red berries, bunga ng
nipa, raffia and wicker balls. Sumalinog has been working as a free-
lance florist for 24 years, 10 of those spent at the Palace. Reza, on the other hand, started in 1987 as a florist for various hotels, and started working for Malacañang in 2002.
Jeremy Escobido is part of the team they call the “sinamay masters.” They made the wall décor – piece de resistance at the Rizal Hall – a Star of Bethlehem in green and red, made purely of sinamay, with the Presidential Seal in the center. Last year, Mugado says, the design was supposed to be a five-point star, but after some deliberation, they turned it into a Christmas tree, also made of sinamay.
Escobido was also part of the group that put up the Christmas tree. This year is the first to have a tree in the Reception Hall, and it is fittingly impressive, made of over 400 green and red bromeliads. It took one whole day to set up, Mugado shares, but it is practically maintenance-free, as the succulents do not need to be watered for up to six weeks.
The staircase leading up to the hall is dressed with raffia previously used in an event in Ilocos, now dyed green for the season. There are also rattan balls that are four years old.
Mugado adds, as he leads the decorating each year, it is important for him to research each new project well, and to keep abreast with the lastest design trends.
The team agrees that it is truly an honor for them to be decorating the home of the nation, adding a touch of holiday spirit to the Palace each year.
Decorations stay up until January, when they come back from the holidays and the team gets ready to decorate for the Palace’s Vin d’Honneur.
There is a new addition to this year’s Christmas décor, says Reyes – a colorful belen donated by a collector who is also a friend of the Palace.
It welcomes guests at the foyer, reminding us that even in Malacañang Palace, the spirit of the season is centered around the family.