Christmas in Ecuador
This year I got to experience my first real christmas! My family in the U.S is Jewish, meaning menorahs and potatoe latkes are a more common sight at our house than stuffed reindeer and a singing santa.
Here is a brief explanation of an Ecuadorian Christmas:
The Christmas festivities in Ecuador don´t just start on Christmas Eve, for the nine evenings before the 25th, the whole family would get together and pray. This is called ¨Rezar la Novena.¨Each night a different memeber of the family would lead the prayers and the songs and also host a small dinner afterwards. This may sound kind of intense, praying for nine nights in a row, but it was actually a lot of fun!
Then came the big celebration, Christmas Eve. Here, Christmas is celebrated on the evening of the 24th, the 25th is just a day of sleeping in after staying up so late the night before. So, on Christmas Eve, my family and I got all dressed up and walked over to my Grandma´s house (she lives right next door). First, as always, we prayed. Then came the feast! I was expecting some rare Ecuadorian delicacy that is made especially for Christmas, or something like that. But I walked over to the table and it was turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, baked yams, and wild rice. They´ve been Americanized!
The food was delicious, and also reminded me of home. After everyone was done eating, we all moved over to the living room and eagerly awaited our presents. Since my host family is so big, they do something similar to a white elephant exchange. Each person will draw a name out of a hat and that is the person they will give a present to. I got a T-shirt and a traditional Ecuadorian purse.
Then came the best part of Christmas. Here, it is a tradition to make what is called ¨fundas de caramelos,¨which translates to ¨bags of candy.¨For Christmas everyone receives these huge bags full of cookies, nuts, candy, and chocolate. So everyone lined up and one of my aunts passed out the bags and after that we were free to go back home.
Once back home, my family and I did our own gift exchange. I had spent the weekend shopping for presents for my family and apparently they had also spent a lot of time shopping for my christmas presents. My family gave me 40 dollars, earrings, a necklace, a ring, and eyeshadow. It really made me feel like I wa a part of the family, and erased almost all the homesickness I was feeling for my family in Salem. I tried to buy my host family things from America, which was kind of difficult considering I am in Ecuador. But after lots of searching, I bought my host mom a Victorias Secret cream, my host dad a Nike baseball hat, and for my three host brothers a huge basket full of American junk food and American music. To say the least, my brothers loved their present. The junk food was almost gone after a couple days.
So….
Merry Christmas!
Feliz Navidad!
Frohe Weihnachten!
Joyeux Noel!
Alex
