Guatemalan Christmas Navidad Traditions

With the exception of blowing massive amounts of money shopping, I believe the Guatemalans put far more effort into celebrating Christmas than those of us in the USA or Europe. I’ll try to describe what I’ve seen here in Guatemala.

Multi-day celebration

First, it seems that Christmas itself is spread out across a period of about three weeks. On December 7 there was a huge parade outside Antigua for Dia de Diablo. I’m told other cities and villages have their own unique celebrations to kick of the holidays. After that, every two or three nights I would see a mini-parade called a procession. These were groups of anywhere from 40 to 100 people carrying a platform with some saint at the back and lots of lights and decorations around it. I was amused by the guy who had the job of pushing a cart with a generator following the platform to power the lights. Often a group of a dozen musicians would be playing tunes.

Nativity

Nativity scenes in individual homes are very elaborate and can take up one half of a living room or common room. They are huge and detailed and in many ways remind me of outdoor holiday lights in the USA. For nativities have great deal of time is taken laying down colored wood chips or other material on the ground in patterns reminding me of the sand art of India (of which I know almost nothing about) There can be nearly a hundred (or more) animals and characters (like shepherds) included. Figures are made of wood or ceramic materials.

December 23

Sometime on the 23 the women in the family start preparing traditional tamales for the 24th. This is a multi-hour process. I’m told they are typically cooked for a minimum of eight hours. The effort seems similar to that put into a traditional holiday turkey dinner.

December 24 (Navidad)

Christmas in Guatemala happens on the 24th, not 25th (actually presents are opened at midnight). Feliz Navidad means Happy Christmas and the majority of the celebration happens the afternoon and evening of December 24th. The house I’m in has one full time paid house maid who also helps with cooking. For the 24th a second maid was hired and helped starting at 6am with preparations for the day (by the way, the maid starts cleaning every morning at 6am which includes making my bed and cleaning my room daily mid-day). The afternoon and evening of the 24th usually involve a combination of activities which I’ll try to break down below:

Church

Everyone remotely active in church will attend a meeting. It is a big social activity. The big three religions in order of size are Catholic, Evangelical and Mormon (surprising huh?). The Mormons just built a massive Temple on the hill in Xela here and Mormon missionaries are common.

Social Visits

After church, several hours are devoted to visits to family an friends. Visits involve having something small to eat with friends and some small conversation while eating. A visit can last 15 to 40 minutes (based on what I saw). whiskey or rum seems to be favored (I didn’t see any beer or wine).

Street Dancing 

In the afternoon a bomb went off in the street right outside my house. Actually it was a mortar shell lobbed into the air which exploded a few hundred feet the air setting off car alarms and rattling glass. Everyone ran outside. What we saw was a smaller flat bed truck, police and dancers in costume. It was a navidad celebration with music being played from a sound system on the back of the truck. The dancers had on giant heads and were dancing and slowly turning the heads left and right (they were so huge I thought they would fall over). The played for a couple songs as crowds gathered and the police kept traffic from entering the street. After they left, about 15 minutes later I heard the same bombs going off in another part of town. Apparently the sonic bombs are a bit like the ice cream man calling people to the street.

Tamales

The tamales prepared on the 23rd and cooked for eight hours or more are eaten. At first I believe they would be the main meal and perhaps at one point of time in the past they were the main meal. Now it seems that American and European traditions of larger meat based meals have taken over. Tamales in many homes are more of a traditional light meal eaten mid-afternoon. The main dinner happens with the larger family gathered. Our meal had about 20 people in attendance with only two student gringos and three generations. I’m told that often this meal is held at the grand parents or most senior family members.

Santa Visit

Around 11pm all houses with children receive a personal visit from Santa. Someone in the family gets to play the part. Santa comes and delivers a few special gifts. Often times he arrives in the back of a small pickup tucks with elves and a sound system blaring latin navidad music (I suspect these are the pros who take on the task for families who want a professional delivery). I believe the norm is a quieter entry through the front door (apparently it doesn’t happen in the chimney here).

Fireworks and firecrackers at midnight

At exactly midnight, firecrackers and mini-bombs are setoff. I should mention that firecrackers and fireworks are a norm here are used for every excuse of celebration. I literally here firecrackers going off on a daily basis here. For example, if it is your birthday, one of the favorite ways to celebrate is to sneak into the birthday person’s bedroom at 3am in the morning when they are well asleep, and light hundreds of firecrackers directly under their bed to the great delight of everyone watching. I highly recommend wearing pajamas the night of your birthday in Guatemala! At midnight on the 24th fireworks, firecrackers and small bombs are set off (a much bigger version of our M80).

Opening presents

Opening presents starts a midnight along with the firecrackers and fireworks. After all the presents are opened and children have some time to enjoy their toys, in the early morning hours everyone tries to get a few hours sleep.

December 25

Everyone sleeps until nearly noon. For once there are no church bells at 6am; for weeks now I’ve been waking to church bells at 6am, 6:15, 6:30, 6:45, etc. It is very hard to sleep with that many bells going off. You either adapt or wear very good ear plugs (mine didn’t work so I gave up). At noon, more firecrackers and small bombs go off. At this point the family gathers and goes back to church which concludes the Christmas-Navidad events.

I sort of wish that I had the chance as a child to experience one of these kinds of Guatemalan Christmases. It looks incredibly fun!