A Very Peruvian Christmas

This year, I did something that I’ve never done before. I celebrated Christmas in another country. A few days before Christmas, all of my adventureousness (is that a word?) kind of flew out of the window. I started feeling really sad because I wanted to be at home in the middle of the familiar, looking at Christmas lights, watching Hallmark movies, going to wal-mart with all of the other crazies, making cookies with my sister. 

I may or may not have cried in the middle of the supermarket trying to find some cheese because I saw someone shopping with their mom and I just wanted to be with my mom and oh, tears. 

And so I did what I always do whenever I’m totally sad, I wrote Jesus a note. Everyone has that one thing they do whenever they are totally bummed, and my thing is just to write a letter to Jesus because sometimes He is the only one who gets me! 🙂 So, I did that… 

and then…

Whenever we got back to our apartment on Christmas Eve day, a package was waiting for us!!! Getting a package in Peru is one of the most exciting things EVER! It is just so special! If you know someone living abroad, sending them a package or a letter is so so so so special! I treasure all of the cards or letters that come in the mail! So, we got a package, and I need to stop here and let you know that this was totally a miracle. Mail is so unreliable in Peru. It can take between 3 weeks to 2 months to receive a package from the states or to send something to someone, and you never know exactly when it will arrive because there is no way to track mail in Peru! So having a package arrive at my house on Christmas Eve was a special gift from Jesus and I knew right away that He did it just for me!! I was SO excited! I opened it up to find a whole bunch of special things from my Grandma and Papa. I literally just sat on my couch and cried because of how special it was! 

Later on that night, we went to church because we were invited to a special Christmas Eve event! Here in Peru, they have a party called a “chocolatada” to celebrate Christmas. It is when everyone gets together and drinks hot chocolate and eats a special kind of bread called “paneton” that is filled with little pieces of fruit. They have chocolatadas everywhere- at school, at work, at church, at home. It is their typical Christmas celebration! Since our chocolatada celebration was at a church, we had a type of Peruvian Christmas Eve service with praise songs, a message about Christmas, and prayer. Then we all shared sweet bread and hot chocolate! This was me being in my element again because I love learning about other people’s traditions and I really just love traditions in general!! 

Peruvians don’t celebrate Christmas on Christmas day like we do. They celebrate everything on the 24th! After they have the chocolatada, everyone is in their home preparing supper late at night. At 12am, everyone shoots fireworks and runs out into the streets to tell their neighbors Merry Christmas or “Feliz Navidad!” Afterwards, they open presents and eat supper together, usually around 1 or 2am! They stay up talking and spending time with family until around 4 or 5am when they finally go to bed!

The coolest thing that happened to us is that we didn’t know about the fireworks. Chris and I were in the bed whenever we heard the first “BOOM!” POW! I jumped out of the bed and watched as the entire sky lit up all around me. For miles and miles, as far as I could see out of my window in every direction, the sky was filled with beautiful fireworks! I loveeeee fireworks! I knew that it was another special gift from Jesus just for me! The fireworks continued for hours and I watched them, knowing that Jesus was with me and that His love is what makes Christmas special!

We woke up early on Christmas morning and celebrated like Americans! Waking up ridiculously early (while all of the Peruvians had just fallen asleep), drinking coffee, opening gifts, and cooking a big huge lunch! I was totally determined to cook an old fashioned Christmas lunch and in Peru that is hard! However, I found the cheese!!! And so we had rice and gravy!! (gravy made out of chicken broth because I don’t know where to find turkey in Peru LOL) and homemade from scratch buscuits, my grandma’s macaroni and cheese (hallelujah), sweet potatoes fried in butter with brown sugar on top, and to top it all off, we had a boxed cheesecake left in the cabinet that Chris’ parents brought to us this summer when Jubilee was born and so we also had cheesecake!!!! 😀 It was quite a treat for us since we usually eat Peruvian style all of the time which consists of fried plantains, rice, mangos, avocados, soups, beans, (a lot more healthy than buscuits and mac & cheese haha!) but it was very special to have our own traditional food on Christmas day! 

 

After all of our Peruvian Christmas adventures, our Christmas day probably looked a lot like yours! We ate way too much, watched Christmas movies, and spent time enjoying our little family! Oh, one small difference is that it’s summer time here! So our Christmas day was hot and sunny! That didn’t stop us from playing old Christmas albums and lighting candles and drinking hot chocolate though! 

Our first Christmas as a family of 3 and our first Christmas in South America actually ended up being quite wonderful! No matter where you might be in the world, Jesus is right there with you, and the whole reason for Christmas is to celebrate Him!! 

Merry Christmas!!!! 🙂