{"id":7176,"date":"2018-10-27T13:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T05:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/?p=7176"},"modified":"2021-07-16T10:45:14","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T02:45:14","slug":"expats-guide-to-filipino-undas-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/2018\/10\/27\/expats-guide-to-filipino-undas-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Expats Guide to Filipino Undas Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filipinos may not be big on celebrating Halloween, but they make sure to honor the dead during this time through Undas<\/em>. Undas<\/em> is the Filipino term of celebrating both All Saints\u2019 Day on November 1st and All Souls\u2019 Day on November 2nd. It is the time when the departed loved ones are honored and remembered.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no definite rule on how Undas is celebrated in the Philippines, but here are a few things Filipinos usually do to commemorate the deceased during the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also read:\u00a0Halloween in the Philippines<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Going back home<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Preparation for Undas often starts a few days before the holiday. Since November 1 and 2 are declared as non-working holidays, people use it to go back to their hometowns and provinces. Those who do often buy and reserve tickets ahead of time as seats sell out fast during this time. <\/span><\/p>\n

And since people are going back to their hometowns to visit their departed, h<\/span>eavy traffic is expected as major roads are congested with vehicles and bus stations are\u00a0brimming with passengers all-day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing you should take note with Filipinos celebrating Undas<\/em>\u00a0is that going home often turns into a reunion of some sort for families and relatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also read<\/em>:\u00a0Holiday Rush 2018: Things You Should Know About the Craze in the Metro<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Preparing a simple feast<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As with most Filipino traditions, Undas season often involves food. Family members not only cook meals for relatives who are coming back home, but they also prepare food that would be shared during the visit to the cemetery. <\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from the usual snacks like sandwiches, rice, and viands that do not spoil easily, Filipinos\u00a0also bring their favorite\u00a0kakanin<\/em> or Filipino rice snacks in the cemetery\u00a0as most prefer to spend hours\u00a0or even stay overnight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another thing you should expect with Filipino cemeteries are the street foods, stalls, lighting sticks, balloons etc. that goes around the whole place.<\/p>\n

Also read:\u00a0Get to Know Filipino \u2018Merienda\u2019 Food<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Cleaning up the graves<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Most graves are cleaned and tended to a few days before Undas starts. Cemetery caretakers are often asked to cut and plant grass around the graves or to repaint the gravestones of the departed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Offerings to the dead<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If there’s one more place that is the busiest during the Undas season it is the Dangwa<\/em>\u00a0or the famous Flower Market in Manila. Aside from providing an array of flower shops, the famous market allows for the cheapest flower buys in the Metro. These flowers are offered to the deceased, together with the candles.<\/p>\n

Aside from flowers and candles, some families commemorate the dead by preparing their favorite food and offering it on their graves. They also do prayer offerings and prayer brigade during Undas<\/em> and as for Catholics, mass intentions are usually done for the souls of their departed.<\/p>\n

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Visiting the departed<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Some families start going to cemeteries as early as October 31 to avoid the\u00a0throng of people during the actual Undas. Along with them are the foods and snacks, tables, chairs, and mats they’ve prepared as well as candles and flowers for the graves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some families who want to spend more time with their departed loved ones opt to stay the night in the cemetery. They often set up camping tents to shelter them for the night. This is also another reason why some families bring a lot of food to the cemetery.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Lighting candles on the doorsteps<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For the graves of the departed that are too far to visit, some families commemorate them by lighting up candles in front of their doorsteps. Some who do not have the time to visit the cemetery also do this instead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also read:\u00a0How Filipinos Celebrate All Souls\u2019 Day<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

How about you? How do you celebrate the day of the dead? Let us know in the comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Filipinos may not be big on celebrating Halloween, but they make sure to honor the dead during this time through Undas. Undas is the Filipino term of celebrating both All Saints\u2019 Day on November 1st and All Souls\u2019 Day on November 2nd. It is the time when the departed loved ones are honored and remembered. While there is no definite rule on how Undas is celebrated in the Philippines, Philippine Primer gives you a few things that Filipinos usually do to commemorate the deceased during the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1730],"tags":[1205,1204,1184,142,1203,1208],"class_list":["post-7176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-and-history","tag-all-saints-day","tag-all-souls-day","tag-dangwa","tag-halloween","tag-undas","tag-undas-2018"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7176"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9586,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions\/9586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/tips-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}