The Giant Lantern Festival is
an annual festivities held in December in the City
of San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines. The festival features a competition of
giant lanterns. Because of the popularity of the festival, the city has been
nicknamed the "Christmas Capital of the Philippines".
The first Giant Lantern festival was held to honor President Manuel L. Quezon. At
that time, Quezon made Arayat his rest area and converted Mount Arayat
into a tourist resort. As a show of gratitude to Quezon, the people of
San Fernando held a Christmas lantern contest to honor the first family.
Quezon himself donated the prize for his lantern contest, which was
personally awarded to the winner by First Lady Aurora Aragon Quezon -WikiPedia.org