Merry belated Christmas and New Year!

Merry belated Christmas and New Year!!

I really wanted to write about my holiday festivities but haven’t had a chance so here it finally is! I spent 12 days with my boyfriend’s family in Chimaltenango. It was an amazing culture experience as I really got to immerse myself in their holiday traditions.

Here, Christmas Eve is known as "La Noche Buena" or "The Good Night". This day, the 24th, is much more celebratory than the 25th. This year, La Noche Buena was spent making tamales by cleaning the banana leaves and putting salsa, masa, and chicken or pig in the leaf. We also made ponche, a hot drink made from pieces of papaya, pineapple, melon, raisins, cherries, sugar, and honey. It is delicious! I spent the entire day in the kitchen with the women learning how to cook these Christmas traditions. By 10pm the tamales were finished and we all sat down to eat one. Then, Venoni and I prepared the meat that would be cooked after midnight. During this time I also visited Veno's nieces where they showed me their new clothes they were to wear the following day. (On Christmas Day everyone wears their new clothes...except for me).

By midnight everyone stepped outside to watch the fireworks shooting off from every direction. Once the fireworks died down we started our own with Veno and his brother being the main fire pyros. Finally by 1:30am we began cooking the meat, chirmol, and tortillas. It was a cold night but bundled up near the fire made us forget about the cold (that, and some champagne). Finally around 3am I called it a night and headed up to bed. At least this year I was prepared for the late night. I barely could enjoy it last year because I was so exhausted and wondering why the heck we were still up at 1am making food. So, this year it was exponentially better. From the time spent with the women beginning in the afternoon to the very late evening of fireworks and meat, the entire day was a success.

Here are some photos and a little explanation about them:

TucTuc Christmas parade in Santa Cruz del Quiche

This photo was actually taken in Santa Cruz del Quiche. These red vehicles are called TucTucs and act as taxi's. They'll take you about anywhere in town for Q5. On this day there was a TucTuc Christmas parade where all the TucTucs were decorated with Christmas decorations and playing Christmas music. The first Tuctuc that went by had a "sleigh" and Santa was throwing candy into the crowds. It was adorable. I was really happy that I had the opportunity to experience this Christmas TucTuc parade. It's not everyday you see these little things decorated and playing Christmas music rather than running you over. 

Our 2013 Christmas Tree

Our Christmas Tree! My favorite part of Guatemalan Christmas is how the men go out and chop down trees to serve as the Christmas Tree. My Memere and Pepere sent me some decorations last year as well as more decorations and a stocking this year which add to the beauty of our Tree. A great memory of Christmas last year was when I went out with Venoni to the woods to get our tree. After walking for about an hour, he finally found what he was looking for. He then climbed a 20 ft tree and chopped off the top of it with a machete. With the tree over his shoulder we trekked back to the house where we then had to nail some of the branches to the wall to make sure it stood up straight (sorry landowners).

Making the tostadas for the group

The first day in Chimaltenango consisted of making Tostadas for the Posada. The Posada is when a group of people from the Catholic church carry Jesus from one house to the next over a 9 day period doing the Re-Enactment of Mary and Joseph. Once the group, or "Mary and Joseph" arrive to the house, the residents within the home respond by signing a song. Mary and Joseph are finally recognized and allowed to enter the home. Once they are let in, the group kneels around the Nativity scene to pray. After the prayer each individual receives a snack and a drink prepared by the residents of the home.

The Nativity scene

The group within the home in front of the Nativity scene

Cemetery in Patzicia, Chimaltenango

One evening we visited the cemetery to place flowers on the graves of a few of his family members. It's a very common theme here to visit the cemetery on the holidays to give the flowers and pray a little. 

.

.

One tradition on Christmas Eve day is to make Tamales and Chuchitos. I finally learned how to make them after over a year of living here, although I am still far from a tamal making professional like these ladies. It was a wonderful day learning from these women and exchanging cultural traditions.

Chimaltenango is a very cold department, especially around midnight on Christmas Eve. This was their way to keep warm

Another tradition within Venoni's family is to burn a tire at some point on Christmas Eve. My first thought was "Oh my God, and I feel guilty for burning my trash, how can we burn a tire!? How environmentally friendly." But, to be honest it was actually quite fun. After standing outside in the freezing cold for hours and hours, the fire was great. The little kids also had a blast with it since it provided a source of fire for their sparklers and mini fireworks.






These are two of Venoni's beautiful nephews, Alejandro and Christian. Here, we were roasting marshmallows on the fire from the stove (seen behind them). Yes, somewhere between the tamales, chuchitos, and midnight dinner we found room for marshmallows!








On Christmas Eve the tradition is to shoot off fireworks at midnight. It is one of the most beautiful experiences looking at fireworks in the sky coming from all directions. After about an hour of watching fireworks, the tradition is to cook meat outside on an open fire. In this photo, we were heating the tomatoes to make "chirmol". One the skin burns enough, you peal it off then mush the tomatoes into a salsa with a little bit of salt. I could live on chirmol and tortillas if my diet allowed me too. So good!

This was my attempt at making Christmas a little healthier. I was so excited about the veggies and ranch dressing (that my mom sent me from the States) but it turned out this was the craziest thing they've ever seen. They were dying laughing at the idea of eating raw vegetables. They were trying to be nice by eating the carrots but continued to laugh at every bite. I finally went out and bought chips/nachos for them to dip in the ranch.

Another tradition known as "El Nino", is when children from the Catholic church run from home to home with the "infant Jesus". At each home they receive a snack and a drink. We made over 100 chuchitos and ponche for the kids. They asked me if we have this tradition and I said it reminded me of Halloween? I mean, children visiting homes and receiving some kind of food is similar. You only need to subtract the baby Jesus and add some funky costumes, right??

Between Christmas and New Years, the family went out to their land to harvest their corn. When the guys came back and dropped off the first truck load, Christian could not get enough of it. He was having a blast tossing each piece of corn around. This family makes me smile so much! :-)

The night before New Year's Eve, Veno's uncle and cousin butchered a pig to prepare for the New Year's Eve dinner. They invited us over to eat a little bit of what they killed minutes before. I must admit, it was very delicious meat and I can't deny that it had to do with it being so fresh. We cooked it on that little open fire you can see in the corner of the picture. (I'm so sorry for all those vegetarians reading this out there).








Oh you know, just some pig feet and pig blood. We ate our dinner about three feet from the scene of the massacre. Once again, I'm not going to lie, it was a delicious dinner! I was very appreciative for the butcher family that invited us over. They then invited us over for New Year's Eve dinner the following night. That dinner was absolutely amazing. They cooked the pig leg in an oven with pineapple and some amazing sauce all over it. If I was a Guatemalan, I would love to be part of a butcher family ;-)

Veno's cousin's son, aka the future butcher. Yes, that is a pig's head. He was so excited about showing me the dead parts of the pig. (Once again, sorry to the vegetarians). So cute, though!

Guatemalan Innovation. Using a corn husk to spread the sauce.

On New Year's Eve we ended up going to Veno's sister-in-law's house where we cooked meat on an open fire again. We also had the amazing chirmol and this green stuff, which I forget the name of. After dinner at this home we visited the family from the night before where we watched the midnight fireworks on their roof. They live in the center of town so we were right in the middle of all the fireworks. It was amazing. I took a video of it all but unfortunately it won't load onto my computer. Pretty much it's just an overwhelming amount of loud noises and voices trying to yell over it to communicate. Nevertheless, the experience is very unique. Imagine standing on your roof in a city with every one of your neighbors blowing up fireworks. Guatemala is definitely my new favorite place to spend New Year's Eve. 

One picture I took during the week. May not have much
to do with the holidays, but it's Guatemala
 culture at its finest :-)