Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas from Guatemala!

December 24th and 25th...


Oh my goodness!! If you are a lover of Christmas than Guatemala is where you need to be for the holiday. It is literally Christmas, New Years, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one colorfully wrapped present! Which is ironic I know since Guatemala does not celebrate the 4th of July or Thanksgiving. But it gets my point across! 


We started off Christmas Eve by running a few errands and then wrapping presents. Guatemala's tradition is to stay up til midnight, say a prayer of thanks, eat a large dinner, THEN open presents! You end up staying awake almost all night long. Luis and I didn't get to bed til around 4am! 


So where was I? At around 8pm we ate dinner with Luis' mom's side of the family; grandparents, 2 aunts,  2 uncles, and their prospective families. 19 people total! A big difference for me and my small family of 5! The night started off with some of Luis's cousins setting off fireworks. Then we ate a delicious turkey, potato salad, and rice with corn. After dinner we all made our way into the living room where everyone had a specific chair full of their presents. 

Luis' grandparents don't stay up til midnight anymore so they open the presents early. As a thanks to Luis' family and grandparents for letting us stay at their home we got each family a picture frame with photos of us and them. We got some nice things and I got more than Luis (which he is still jealous about)... Seems his family likes me more ;). So after saying our thanks to everyone we then hitched a ride with Luis' Uncle to Luis' father's side of the family! 


The celebration took place at Luis' Aunt's home. It was filled with Luis' family! I don't know if I've mentioned this before but Guatemalans greet each other the typical spanish way, a kiss on the cheek. I felt like I was kissing people on the cheek forever! The line of family seemed never ending. When we finally greeted everyone we then handed out the gifts we had for the family. Each family member does that and puts them in their corner of the house to open at midnight. We then sat and chatted and listened to Christmas music and counted down the minutes til Christmas. Luis' cousin Velvet has a daughter that is 5 years old and despite the fact that I can't talk with her she seemed to immediately develop a connection with me. She sat with me for about half an hour showing me a gift she received of a book of fairytales. We then went through the book naming things in Spanish and then English. I learned all about Little Red Riding Hood, The Princess and the Pea (La Princesa y El Guisante), and other stories I'd never heard of. 


Then midnight happened and everything went crazy. All around us, everywhere, fireworks were set off. Small ones, big ones, loud ones, colorful ones. Everywhere you looked there were fireworks. You could turn around in a circle and see huge fireworks being set off into the sky, a panoramic 360! Then what happens is everyone kneels by the tree and baby Jesus and says a personal pray. And I mean EVERYONE does it. Then one by one, people get up and wait respectfully for everyone to finish. Once everyone was finished the hugging and wishing well starts. You kiss and hug each person, wishing them well and Merry Christmas. And THEN you eat dinner! We had another turkey, rice, and salad meal! Very similar but different than our first meal, the flavors were entirely different.  

Once we finished dinner we then started to open presents. And by the time presents were finished it was around 2:30am. We talked for a little bit more, one of Luis' cousin's said he wanted to take us to hike a volcano sometime soon! And we left around 3:30am, got home around 4:00am and immediately went to bed. Christmas is over right? Wrong! 


The next day at noon and 6pm you set off fireworks again. And at noon you kneel down in front of the tree and baby Jesus again and say a prayer and well wishes. What an amazing holiday! Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!