After spending Christmas in Huallanca, I now feel like an official Huallanquina because I ate a Christmas dinner of heaping mounds of pork at 1am on Christmas eve, and danced until the sun came up....Ok now let me backtrack a little to explain Christmas traditions in Peru and in Huallanca. In Peru, the Christmas tradition is to celebrate at midnight on Christmas eve. They get together with the whole family on Christmas eve and wait until midnight and then everyone hugs each other and says "Feliz Navidad!". Then the kids open their presents, and at about 1 am the family has a big Christmas dinner. My family of course ate mounds of pork and potatoes. Oh and I almost forgot a very important part. Pretty much every family in Peru and every store, business, you name it, has a very elaborate nativity scene. They wait to put baby Jesus in the nativity scene until midnight on Christmas eve. They say this is because its the time and day that baby Jesus was born. When my family brought out the baby Jesus to put it in the nativity scene, they all kissed him and made weird baby like noises at it...It was interesting haha. After that we had hot chocolate and paneton which is a huge Peruvian tradition. Paneton is a type of bread with pieces of jelly and raisins. I personally think its disgusting but Peruvians LOVE paneton and go crazy for it around Christmas time which is the only time of the year that it is sold.
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| The little Christmas tree that my mom sent me for my room with presents waiting underneath that my mom and some other friends sent me :) |
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| My little sister's on Christmas eve :) |
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| With my host sister's on Christmas eve :) |
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| Baby santa haha :) |
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| My aunt and happy baby cousin :) |
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| Their is baby Jesus in all his glory finally placed in the manger on Christmas eve. |
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| My host family even gave me a Christmas present! Its a very large over sized shirt with a photo of some catholic virgin that say "Virgen of Carmen, boss of Huallanca". Hahaha I think its hilarious and I will definitely keep it forever and will wear it with Huallanca pride :) |
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| The kids opening their present. |
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| My adorable Billy :) |
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| The family watching the kids open presents |
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| Grandpa with his grand babies! |
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| I wasn't exagerating when I said heaping mounds of pork and potatoes...which we ate at 1 am. |
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| Christmas eve dinner with my host family. They cooked the dinner at my host uncle's restaurant so that the whole family could fit. |
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| Baby cousin Meche gnawing on a pork bone...hahaha. |
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| What was left of the pig after our dinner. |
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| The famous Christmas tradition of hot chocolate and paneton. |
After being stuffed to the brim and having some quality family time, my little sister and I slept for two hours and then woke up at 4 am to go out to the streets of Huallanca to do the traditional dance of "Los negritos". This is a HUGE Christmas tradition in Huallanca. People talk about it and wait for it all year long. The dance is done only two times per year: during Huallanca's anniversary and Christmas time. There are groups of men who do the dance of "Los negritos" for 3 days straight, the 24th-26th of December. My host dad and host uncles usually also participate in the dance, but they didn't this year because of mourning for our aunt who passed away two months ago. So my little sister and I danced the traditional Huallanca dance from 4 am-6 am on Christmas morning after getting only two hours of sleep. It was so much fun but I was exhausted and definitely the only sober person over the age of 16 who participated in the dancing. The dancing that is done during the day is only done by the men in the costumes, but the dancing from 4-6 am on Christmas morning is open for all the many locals participate.
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| The famous dance of "Los Negritos" during the day on Christmas eve. |
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| The famous dance of "Los Negritos" during the day on Christmas eve. |
Here are a few photos of dancing with "Los Negritos" from 4-6 am on Christmas morning.
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| My little sister Melany. |
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| People really loved that I participated in the dancing. They shouted "Look at the gringa dancing with "Los Negritos"!! I don't think they have ever seen a gringo do their traditional dance! |
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| The Plaza at about 5:30 am on Christmas morning. |
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| The view from my room at 6 am returning from dancing on Christmas morning. |
After dancing the traditional dance from 4-6 am, my little sister and I returned home and slept for a few hours. Then my siblings and cousins opened the presents that I had bought for them and some presents that my mom sent them from the states. As I mentioned, in Peru they open their presents at midnight on Christmas eve but I told my Peruvian family that they had to wait to open my present for them until Christmas morning because that is how we do Christmas in the US. I even made them Christmas stockings filled with little goodies to open because I wanted to share with them another Christmas tradition from the US. They have never had a Christmas stocking before and they loved it! They loved all of their presents from my mom and I and it was a lot of fun to watch them open everything.
Christmas day is usually a really chill day for Peruvians since they do all the celebrating the night before at midnight. So my siblings really enjoyed having presents to open on Christmas day and doing some Christmas activities.
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| Their first ever Christmas stockings! |
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| Excited about the little goodies in their stockings. |
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| My mom sent my Peruvian host mom a little gift and she really liked it :) |
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| Christmas morning with my host family. |
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| With my baby sister :) |
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| With the presents my mom sent them :) |
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| Billy got a harmanica in his stocking and hasn't stopped playing it since he opened his stocking...the family might kill me haha. |
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| Teaching Billy how to play "Go Fish" with the cards my mom sent him. |
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| Playing with the Christmas stamps. |
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| Playing the tic-tac-toe Christmas game that my friend Jessica sent them. Thanks Jezzy!! |
And then of course...their was more dancing of "Los negritos", this time in the fancier costumes for Christmas day.
I have been a little bit emotional with it being Christmas and really missing my family and being homesick and of course I really wanted to be home celebrating with my loved ones. But I also really tried to be fully present for my first Christmas in Peru because I know that it will be an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Happy holidays to all!!!
