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Published: January 10th 2008
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Although we have been told that Christmas is a distant cousin to the much more exciting Semana Santa (Holy Week), we have really enjoyed the Christmas season here in Antigua.
The first signs that Christmas was coming (because we were not encountering the normal Seattle signs of miserable cold and rain) was the sudden presence of LOTS of pointsettias in many of the local stores, coffee shops, and restaurants. We also saw a lot of the classic Christmas decorations, such as trees (plastic, of course), blinking lights, and Santas. One day Steve walked by a building and saw a Santa on top of the roof, with a plastic bag over his head! A few days later they removed the bag (was he having a bad beard day?) and we have a picture of that.
It seemed so strange for us to hear people wishing us a Merry Christmas when we were walking around in short-sleeves and putting on sunscreen, but there you have it. One day we bought a PLASTIC Christmas tree, some lights and some ribbons and put together our own little version of the Guatemalan Christmas tree. What was so funny was assembling the tree; it fit
Setting up our Christmas tree
yes, that is Lucas holding the UPPER HALF of the Christmas tree, which came in the box Grace is holding! Not exactly how we do it in Seattle... in 2 pieces, which you can see here in the photo. Not exactly how we do it in Seattle!
We had heard that on December 5th (Lucas' birthday) there would be a concert of Handel's Messiah at Casa Santo Domingo, which is a fantastic open-air venue inside a very nice hotel here, set among the ruins. We had tried to get tickets several days in advance, but were told that they were all sold out. Our hopes dashed, we decided to just have a nice dinner and walk around town, enjoying the lights on Lucas' birthday.
When we told our friend Christine of our plans, she of course told us that she would try to get us tickets from her cousin, who was a member of the choir. During the course of the day Christine worked the phones, but in the end her cousin was only able to get us one ticket. We decided to decline the ticket and just visit the site, since the venue is just gorgeous and perhaps we might be able to hear a snatch of the concert by just walking around the site.
We arrived about 15 minutes after the concert started,
Casa Santo Domingo
This was taken during the day, but imagine this set up for the Messiah concert, with candles everywhere. The "roof" is a sort of Cirque de Soleil-type structure. and of course they told us it was long sold out. We stood there, looking like disappointed dogs, and one of the staff said they'd go look and see if there were any empty chairs that we could sneak in to sit. After about 5 minutes' wait, he came back and informed us that there were 3 empty chairs...and implied with his face that it wasn't going to work for us. Steve pointed to Grace and said "pero ella es pequena" (but she is small), not acknowledging the obvious reality that inch for inch Grace is bigger than about 80% of the Guatemalan population. He sort of looked at Steve like "yeah, RIGHT she can sit on your lap" but allowed us to purchase 4 tickets (3 chairs) and we walked to the concert site.
I can't begin to describe how beautiful the concert site is. The Casa Santo Domingo is a hotel amidst the ruins of a 16th century convent, and has a fantastic outdoor area covered by a Cirque de Soliel-like tent roof. The concert section and the garden area surrounding it were lit by thousands of candles, which we later heard took 3 hours to light.
Casa Santo Domingo
The night of the concert, this fountain was running and was surrounded by thousands of candles. Magic! The concert was, of course (being the Messiah) just great, but truly the best thing was the real delight shown by both Lucas and Grace about being able to attend the concert. Lucas said it was one of the best birthdays he ever had!
December 7th is an interesting event with
La Quema del Diablo, or the Burning of the Devil. Guatemalans use this as an opportunity to do some spring cleaning, and pile all their rubbish in the streets in front of their houses. Then they set it on fire, and burn a devil effigy, and believe it cleanses the house and town of evil. Lucas and I had the chance to visit a friend of Christine's house during this bonfire, and I have a picture here of her dancing in front of the fire.
Later in the week we were invited up to Guatemala City to join Philip (Wilson's) family in celebrating
La Posada, which is a little parade taken around the neighborhood with kids carrying a platform of the figures of Mary and Joseph, looking for room at the inn. A little band played in front as we walked around the very nice neighborhood, singing
Guatemalan carols, and eventually knocking on a neighbor's door, to ask if they could take in Mary and Joseph. Traditionally, the neighbor does take in the figures, and the following year does the same thing. (Somewhat comically, the only person who answered the door was the maid, who wasn't able to accept.)
One Friday night later in the month we went to see the symphony playing Christmas songs in front of the Cathedral in the Parque Central. They played songs from the Nutcracker, Irving Berlin, and other classics. A famous tenor ("the Pavarotti of Guatemala") sang and it was just wonderful! How strange to be able to walk around on a calm, warm(-ish) night with no rain and wind. The park was packed and everyone was in a festive mood. That was a great Christmas memory.
Lastly, but most importantly, was our wonderful Christmas visit by our dear friends and neighbors, the Gellerts, along with Steve's godson, Carlos. I'll have another entry soon on more of their visit. They arrived just before Christmas, and so we were able to continue our little tradition of having Christmas dinner together.
On Christmas eve we got reservations at the Casa
Cathedral at night
where the symphony played Christmas songs. Lovely! Santo Domingo (can you see a pattern here? It's the nicest place in town) for dinner, and we had a great dinner in the candle-lit restaurant. We later walked around town, through the Christmas-lit park, and then tried to find a Christmas mass. We tried several churches, but were either too early or too late. Finally we took a taxi home, stoked up the fire in our fireplace (by now it was quite chilly!), and sat around opening gifts for a while. Then the 4 adults got a taxi and tried to find another mass, which we did at our (now) favorite church, San Francisco. The service was lovely and festive, with more incense than usual and a neat little parade at the end where the priests carried around a statue of the baby Jesus around the cathedral and into an alcove where the rest of the nativity statues were awaiting with the manger.
Christmas Day was filled with the usual hubbub of good cheer, gifts, food and wine, but the kicker here was that in the afternoon the kids then went swimming in an outdoor pool! Now THAT's not quite normal for us Seattlites!
Steve and I
La Posada event
Banging drums (some made out of turtle shells!) and making music to alert the neighbors that we were coming. have agreed that December is a fantastic month to visit Antigua. With warm days, chilly evenings, and all sorts of wonderful cultural events, this is a lovely season here.
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