The show goes on
EVERY CHRISTMAS season for the last 50 years, Filipinos have been receiving a very special treat from the Rosarios of COD Department Store-a colorful Christmas show free of charge.
This early, the Rosarios are busy preparing for this year’s Christmas show at the Greenhills Shopping Center, which is opening on Nov. 15.
The very first COD Christmas show was staged in 1957 at the department store’s original location on Avenida Rizal in Manila. It started as a mere marketing gimmick to lure customers into going to and, eventually, shopping at the COD.
It later evolved into a sort of ‘tradition’ to many, even to people in the provinces, who made it a point to bring their kids and even the kids of their kids to the yearly show.
COD is gone, shutting down in 2002, but Alex Rosario Sr. continued the
tradition, staging the Christmas show at the Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan since 2003 in partnership with the Ortigas family.
Grandest
The Christmas show last year, the 50th, was titled “Once Upon a Christmas Dream.” It was so far the grandest in the history of the show, featuring more than 30 animated figures with more intricate movements using a new concept and modern animation techniques.
The Greenhills show, aside form being the grandest and most intricate, was also the longest at 17 minutes.
“Once Upon a Christmas Dream” was highlighted by a waltzing couple,
accompanied by two figures-one playing the violin and the other, a harp.
About 30 people manned the controls. Since the show was not fully automated, some workers will be manually operating the figures, while others will attend to the automation, lights and music to make sure that all of the elements are neatly in place.A number of these workers were the children and family members of the original staff that helped the COD mount the first show in downtown Manila.
Flashback
Manila COD (for cash on delivery) was already in operation for nine years when Rosario, then 24 years old, thought of putting up an animated window display to get people to take notice of the wares offered inside the 230-square-meter store.”We could not afford expensive radio advertisements so we had to come up with something else to attract customers during our sale that November,” said Rosario, who being the eldest of six children, was the president of the
company.
That ’something else’ was a belly dancer made of plaster of Paris, which had been fitted with an electric fan motor to make it move. It was an instant hit. “The distance from the front of the store to my desk was just 20 meters but it took me 10 minutes to get through all the people that came into the store,” Rosario recalled. The success of the animated display encouraged Rosario to put up another one
for Christmas, this time featuring a moving Santa Claus laden with gifts.
That very first Christmas show was mounted on a stage just eight meters
long, the frontage of the Avenida store. It would become bigger and bigger through the years.
When the Avenida location was threatened to be overwhelmed by bars and
restaurants, Manila COD transferred to the Araneta Center in Cubao, Quezon City, in 1966.
Still the biggest come-on
“I gave myself six years for us to recover our investment (in the new
location). Thank God we immediately earned on our first year,” Rosario said. That first Christmas show at Araneta Center had a lot to do with Manila COD’s success. And what a show it was. The theme was “Cinderella” and the Rosarios got popular movie star Liberty
Ilagan to open the show. The Christmas display became so popular, groups of families would patiently wait outside the Manila COD to watch the show, the mechanical display portion of which lasted from 10 to 15 minutes.
Themes varied from year to year but there would be repeats of some of the more popular ones because of public demand. These were the “Barrio Fiesta” and “Santa Claus” shows and the all-time favorite and most often repeated, the “Nativity” Christmas show.
Made by hand
Sometimes the theme was also influenced by the times, like the show
featuring Muslims and Christians at a time when there were calls for
friendship between people of different faiths. When the late dictator
Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, the Christmas show that year incorporated a short history of the Philippines.
Rosario said he had the most difficult time mounting the “Christmas
Galactica” show of 1969 to celebrate the moon landing that year. The stage had to accommodate a space module and needed a huge backdrop to simulate outer space.
Mounting the displays is not easy as each part of the mannequins has to be made by hand. About 50 workers are needed to make the costumes, paint the mannequins and install the motors. Then there are the plumbers, electricians, carpenters and sound experts.
According to Rosario, only one member from the original crew is still alive, Berting Aguirre, who applies the makeup on the mannequins. But the others live on through their children and relatives who continue to involve themselves in the show.
Rosario said that one reason the people who were involved in putting up the display loyally stuck together was their sense of pride in having created something of beauty and wonder.
“We all felt that we were involved in something bigger than ourselves. It is no longer just a show, it has become our mission,” he said.
Ortigas steps in
The Christmas show almost came to a halt in 2002 when Rosario decided to close down Manila COD because business was no longer as good. Fortunately, the Ortigas family stepped in and invited Rosario to move the show to its third home, the Greenhills Shopping Center. The partnership is now on its fifth year.
