La Navidad

The birth of Christ, snow and cold weather, Christmas trees, stockings, and Christmas lights are all things that come to mind when I think about Christmas.  This year things were a little bit different.  Instead of snow we had hot weather and instead of normal Christmas trees some people had little ones, but not even everyone had these and stockings were none existent.  On top of that, we ate Christmas Eve dinner around 10:30 at night, outside, and at midnight we shared a toast and watched fireworks go off.  It was pretty cool to see and an experience of a lifetime!! 

While we were in Rosario we also came up with our own rendition of a common Christmas song and I figured I should share it:

“I’m dreaming of a hot Navidad.  Just like the ones I’ve never known.  Where the trees are palm trees, and people stare at us, because they know we’re not from here. :)” 

Aside from all of the seemingly ‘odd’ traditions, being able to experience Christmas in another culture has been amazing.  One of the things that I have felt truly blessed about us being here, is that the family is Christian, and thus, Christmas is still about Jesus.  Another thing that was cool was that there was no major gift giving events that took away from the true meaning of Christmas.

Christmas Eve Dinner

Nico and Laura

Dani and Laura

The morning of Christmas Caitlin woke up with a HUGE grin on her face and was lit up like I had never seen before.  She was so excited because Santa had come for Marie and I.  It was a splendid surprise and we were blessed with mini stockings filled with nail polish, fuzzy socks and candy. :) 

Because of the hot weather, we couldn’t dress in our normal bundled up holiday attire, but each of us threw on some Christmas socks so that we still felt “in the spirit.” :)

That morning we got up for church and then afterwards we headed over to Monica’s sister’s house that lives about 10 blocks away.  It was a lot of fun because their house has a pool and ping-pong table, so we were able to hang out in our swimsuits, play some games and enjoy each others company.  We ate almost the exact same meal that we had had the night before, again only consisting of cold foods, which was different for us, and then we were also able to experience some traditional Christmas sweets such as pan dulce, chocolate-ish bars with peanuts in them and peanuts covered in toffee, chocolate or candy.  On Christmas day, I was also blessed with meeting another relative of the Riedel’s.  Hopefully you can follow, but he is the father of Monica (the women we are staying with- Fred’s cousin), which makes him the brother to Kyle’s Grandma (Fred’s mom), and he is probably one of the sweetest old men you will ever meet.  He was so intrigued with how I knew the family and I thoroughly enjoyed just being able to meet him.  It blows my mind that God can so intricately weave things together like He has and I really love the opportunities that I have been given to be able to spend with some of Kyle’s relatives here in Argentina.

On another note, I think I can speak for Caitlin and Marie when I say this, it didn’t really feel like Christmas.   I think partly because we were hanging out in our swimsuits in the hot weather, but the majority being because we didn’t get to spend this time with our families.  Luckily we had each other and we all know that this will be something that we get to look back on later in life and simply remember the memories that we have with each other.  We were each other’s family this year and I feel so blessed in being able to share this experience with these two friends of mine.  They mean a lot in my life and I couldn’t have imagined it being any other way.

Estamos en las manos de Dios. :)