Christmas Eve in the Guatemala...
We had the honor of spending Christmas Eve with our dear friends the Galvez family. President Galvez is presently the temple president in Quetzaltenango and was also Seth's mission president in Panama. They have remained close all these years and we have enjoyed the benefit of that relationship. We drove to their son's home, Sam Galvez, about 45 minutes away. It was fun to spend the evening visiting, eating, and watch them talk to their missionary grandson serving in Georgia. Of course, we Facetimed with Seth so he could say hi also.
Later that evening, we drove back to our apartment and shared a rather unique custom here in Guatemala although we understand it is common in most Latin countries...FIREWORKS! on Christmas Eve. At midnight, the whole city was popping with fireworks! We went up on the roof of our building and watched the light show. It felt like we were in a war zone with popping all around us. The noise was almost alarming but fascinating at the same time!
Christmas Day was spent at home. We had a nice quiet day ending with dinner with our Senior Missionary friends. We all brought something to the dinner and took away full stomachs and good memories. Thank you Craguns for hosting us!
I remember my first Christmas in Guatemala I was actually really quite terrified of the fireworks--they did make me feel like I was in a war zone! If I remember right they also did fireworks earlier in the month of December. My companion and I were walking down the street one evening, and we noticed the people were making piles of garbage in the street in front of their houses, and then all of the sudden they started burning the garbage and added fireworks. We were seriously frightened! Both of us were gringas who had never experienced what we later found out was 'the burning of the devil. " Do you know what tradition I am talking about?
ReplyDeleteI LOVE seeing your pictures and reading about your experiences!
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DeleteYes, Holly...it resembled a war zone in sounds. But, it was fascinating. The fireworks are all through the year actually but more intense on holidays and especially December and Christmas plus New Years in particular.
DeleteThey do celebrate "Day of the Dead" before Christmas where they burn garbage and fireworks. You also see a lot of pinatas in the shape of the devil that they burn. It is rather odd but definitely a tradition here. The next day, Christmas morning and New Year's day when we looked outside, it looked like it had snowed because there was so much debri from the fireworks that had been lite the night before. On New Year's Day we were suppose to be someone at a certain hour but were asked to come later. After we got there he said there were fireworks still being lite and a few drunk people on the street. I think he did not want the missionaries around that situation.
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