Christmas fireworks

December 29^th, 2011

            So now that Christmas has passed by I just wanted to take some time to discuss some of the Christmas/Holiday traditions here in Honduras. So it seemed to me that the real Christmas down here is actually Christmas Eve, the 24^th. On Christmas Eve, all of the parties seemed to take place as opposed to on Christmas day. Now I know that in the States there always does seem to be parties all throughout the week leading up to and week after, however, it just seemed to me that the 25^th (actual Christmas) just did not seem like Christmas. That may have been because I was away from my family for the first time in my life (hard to do, but glad I had this experience) and that there was no snow to put me in the Christmas spirit. With that being said, I celebrated Christmas by working an event with RBC in which we gave some presents to over 100 kids with disabilities as well as provided their families with a bag of food and a meal. It was a good time and a great way to spend a Christmas day.

            Now as far as I witnessed there was no stocking handed out or no waking up on Christmas morning to presents from Santa. I believe what happens is that usually the presents are just given out at random times, at least that is how I handed out my presents to the various people. The big Christmas food here is nacatomales which I am not exactly sure how to explain to everyone but it is basically like a bunch of vegetables, meat, and other stuff put inside some dough. They are delicious. The other real big Christmas food is roasted pigs which are also really good. My host dad’s mom cooked 6 pigs and had to stay up all night watching the stove, so yea they take the roasting of the Christmas pig pretty serious.

            The last big Christmas and also New Year’s thing from what I have been told is the setting off of fireworks. Now when you hear fireworks, you most likely like I did, think of fireworks like our 4^th of July fireworks. However, here in Honduras most of the fireworks that I have seen heard are literally just loud noises (I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE ARE YELLING ABOUT!) plus smoke. Usually fireworks like these are set off on a normal day and it is totally not uncommon to hear at basically all hours of the day, on Christmas though, the fireworks were taken to another level. Basically all day on the 24^th fireworks were being shot off, and lots of them and they all came to a crescendo at midnight on the 24^th (or should I say the 25^th?). The amount of fireworks that were set off at midnight really was amazing and made me feel as though I was in a war zone… and no thankfully I have never been in a warzone.