By Delores Johnson
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Christmas is a summer holiday. Being from the USA, after living here for five years, I am still shocked to see Christmas decorations, gift items, and special foods for Christmas among swimming pool and picnic supplies and lawn furniture. Here you can spend Christmas Day swimming in your pool, not shoveling snow.
Young people here start going out to clubs around midnight on Christmas Eve and will return at daybreak on Christmas Day. I celebrate Christmas Eve with a large family that is more oriented to celebrating at home on Christmas Eve. The parents who are in their 70s host the holiday celebrations at their house.
Before the three sons and their wives and children arrive, the father fires up the barbecue. We start gathering around 9 pm for a dinner at 10 pm, outside around the picnic table. We eat almost every kind of meat imaginable with bread and salads. Dessert is often ice cream, Italian-style, delivered that evening.
Fireworks start when it becomes dark but they seem to reach intensity between 11 pm and 1 am. The floating lanterns from China are beautiful. They are small paper parachutes, about a foot and a half across, with a burning pot below. The pot has a candle or another burning substance. The heat from the candle raises the lantern like a balloon and it floats across the sky. Even though it is nighttime you can see the lantern because of the fire below it.
Although some young children receive gifts from Santa Claus in Argentina, gifts are not exchanged in this family. They wait until January 6th and The Three Kings bring gifts to the young children. Christmas Eve is a time to spend together as a family.
Delores Johnson - http://www.lifeinargentina.com/
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