Holiday Traditions

Christmas here in Ecuador is celebrated by most families at midnight on Christmas Eve (called La Nochebuena.)  They eat a big meal, turkey or chicken, depending on what they can afford and exchange gifts, including bags of assorted candies.  Protestant churches don’t usually have services on Christmas Eve, but have a Christmas program earlier in the month.  For this reason, the missionaries in Shell got together and had a progressive dinner and carol sing on Christmas Eve this year.  It was a big hit and maybe the start of a new tradition.  We stuck to opening presents on Christmas day, the tradition in both Paul’s and my families and Grandma especially enjoyed seeing the boys open their presents.  Since we just had turkey at Thanksgiving, we had green chicken enchiladas, (with canned tomatillos that Paul’s Mom imported for us!) which is becoming our family tradition on Christmas day.  Our longest standing tradition was our 6th annual Christmas cookie decorating party.  Six years ago when it was Sammy and two Ellies, all just over one-year-old with parents doing most of the work, we couldn’t have foreseen continuing this tradition in another country.  (And last year it was a bilingual party.)

New Year’s Eve also had unique traditions here in Ecuador.  The old year is represented by a straw doll in the form of an old man that is burned at midnight and his wife is the New Year.  Men dress like women (the wife of the “old year”) and collect change in the evening of New Year’s Eve because they are soon to be widowed.  Burning the old man, or old year represents getting rid of anything that was bad or negative in the old year.  We had the chance to walk around Shell and see some of the dolls that were made, some in quite elaborate displays.  They are often given the faces of popular figures or the families that they represent.