The biggest event of the month long Silahis ng Pasko has been cancelled for its 47th staging but some of its more important components will push through in a toned down celebration due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, project head Fritz Gerald Padilla announced this week.

Instead, the longest Christmas oriented celebration in the city will start on Tuesday, December 8, with a mass at the Shrine of Brown Madonna, Padilla said in a statement this week.

The shrine at Tadiangan at Kilometer 8 in Tuba, Benguet and near the BenCab Museum is a place of worship put up in a cave by the late Narciso Padilla, a former councilor and media cum sportsman.

Fritz Gerald, son of the late councilor, said in a statement that this “December, SnP lives on albeit the absence of the formal opening program and festivities, we shall continue to share the spirit of giving joy and happiness to our less fortunate in life with selected activities.”

He added that the celebration will have select activities and “will be conducted with less funfare.”

The younger Padilla said that activities will include the day for people with disabilities on the third Sunday, the Lucky Christmas and New Year’s Babies and the day for senior citizen that will be culminated with the TALA awards.

The Children’s Mardi Gras is SNP’s biggest activity that kicks off not just the festivity but also the city’s celebration Christmas in Baguio festivity.

The parade of pre-school children garbed in Christmas garbs open at 6AM that usually start a busy December 1 calendar that culminated with the after sunset Saint Louis University Lantern Parade.

Last year, more than 3,000 children joined the early morning parade.

“We hope and pray that we shall reach the end of this crisis and have a better year ahead to prepare for Silahis ng Pasko 2021,” added Padilla, who took over as Santa Claus during the month-long festivity.