My Peruvian Christmas

Our Creche and Christmas Trees: Elizabeth Taylor and Droopy

            The two days without electricity came to an abrupt end with a repetitious angry interpretation of the Alvin and the Chipmunk’s Christmas special out of a little green box attached to the lights that changed color to the melody.  The lights flashed over the moss and grass and little figurines that adorned the creche, or “Nacimiento del niño”.  To the right and left of the creche stood their versions of Christmas trees.  One was a bristly, easily disassembled  plastic tree, wrapped Elizabeth Taylor style in a tinsel boa, and missing one of it's four "feet", so it leaned against the bench to stay upright.  On the right hand side was the other tree, which appeared to actually be a branch. It was comical in all it’s gangliness, a wirey trunk with droopy long branches, like an underconfident teenager next to the bedazzled prom queen.  Reminded me a lot of the Christmas tree in the original cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I kept thinking of the tacky creche they set up at the Lyme Country Store every year that’s made of plastic and all the people glow – it could be worse.  Peruvians definitely needed to work on the Christmas tree thing, but they had the creche down. 

             If you’re thinking I had too much time to analyze this, let me paint the scene for you.  The creche was set up in the only common space in my house, which is the bigger room my bedroom was sectioned off from.  It has cement floors, adobe walls, one table, a bunch of benches, and two doors, which I use to get outside.  The only thing separating my room from this one is the thin piece of wood my host dad put up and made into a wall.  On this special evening, my host mom, Celina, had brought in a piece of foam, which I expect was from an old bed, and put it on the cement floor.  My host dad’s sister and her daughter and two sons and two old people who might have been my host mom’s aunt and uncle came over to spend Christmas Eve with us.

 The old woman had been over the night before for what was a very strange makeshift service, which was mostly Hail Mary’s and a lot of my host dad, Samuel, mumbling words he read out of some religious book.  I, unfortunately, was present for this and felt like I was witnessing some sort of cult behavior.  I think I had that feeling only because they were mumbling in a language I don’t know very well.  Only other notable thing from that evening was when the old woman took off her campo hat and she literally had a skunk stripe.  She’d dyed her hair dark black, but she had about two inches down the middle of her part that was mostly white and a little grey.  I had to bite my lip and look away, imagining what my Mom would have said if she’d seen this lady. 

Anyway, there I sat on the edge of the foam, my butt soaking up the cold from the cement beneath, shaking a little in my fleece, staring at the creche for something to do.  I tried participating in the conversation, but no one would talk slow enough for me to understand.  The only thing I did take part in was the drinking circle that had started.  They had a bottle of champagne, which, to be fair, tasted more like horribly over-fermented apple juice.  They also had a little shot glass type thing.  Common practice is to fill your cup, pass the bottle on, toss it back in one swoop, snap your wrist once to try and get out any of your backwash, and pass the cup to the next person.  My host family thought it was funny to include the three kids under 10 in this ritual, including my 6 year old sister, Mishel.  They actually pressured kids to drink.

After a couple rounds of this, the Alvin and the Chipmunks started to sound like that horrible ringing you get in your ears after spending the night dancing near loud speakers.  It was also only 9 o’clock, and I knew we would be waiting until midnight for anything to happen.  I couldn’t help thinking about home and what they had been doing during the day.  I had tried to forget Christmas was coming the whole week, which wasn’t that difficult considering the entire lack of usual indicators that Christmas is coming, but I couldn’t really avoid it anymore.  I didn’t think I could make it three hours just sitting there in silence thinking about my family, and the rain had made the cold a wet, bone deep cold, so I got up and went into my room and shut the door.  I got in my bed, closed my eyes, and fell asleep.  At eleven, as I had suspected, my host mom barged into my room and told me to get up.  What I hadn’t expected was she had the bottle of “champagne” in her hand, along with the cup.  She poured me a glass, spilling some on my bed, and said, “drink”, or “toma”. I tossed it back with a bit of a grimace and she poured me another one. “Toma.” I drank it.  “To help you wake up.” She said, and then told me to come.  I got out of bed, and took my place on the foam again.  No one was really talking, Peruvians are oddly comfortable with complete silence, and “parties” can sometimes take the form of sitting together in a room in silence.

  There we were, angry Alvin the only source of noise.  I checked my watch every fifteen minutes or so until I fell half asleep sitting up.  I woke up again around 11:45 and just waited it out.  Once midnight came, no one said anything.  I was going to say something but I didn’t know if there was a ritual or tradition I would ruin so I waited.  About ten minutes later Celina came in and said, “It’s midnight.  Merry Christmas,” and the Christmas hugging began.  Everyone hugged everyone, then the old woman took the disproportionately sized Jesus out of the creche and went to each person, who touched or kissed the weird little Jesus doll, then crossed themselves. 

Given that this lady had stared at me every time they crossed themselves or said Hail Mary during their strange service the other day, I thought it would be uncomfortable for me to not cross myself, but it was one of those moments where you try to decide if it is worth just giving in and doing it or if it really is a kind of compromise of yourself and your beliefs.  I decided it wasn’t something I would normally do, but I didn’t want to feel uncomfortable, so I just walked out of the room, through the door that leads outside.  (This may sound awkward, but my host mom had just gone in that direction and I don’t think anyone really noticed I left.)

  I spent the rest of the evening serving the traditional Christmas Eve/midnight Christmas “feast”, which consisted of chicken, a huge piece of panetón (which is a bread with nasty gummy things in it), and some random biscuit-y things that taste like meat because they’ve been baked in animal fat.  We all sat in a circle on the benches, foam, or cement, and I tried not to think about Christmas Eve dinner at home in New Hampshire as I picked at my cold chicken with my fingers.  I couldn’t bring myself to eat any of it, but I sipped at the delicious milk/chocolate/herb concoction that Celina had made.  It was fresh, hot milk with a melted chocolate bar that has herbs in it, made especially for occasions like this and one of the more delicious things I’ve had in Perú.  I prayed that the milk had been sufficiently boiled and that I wouldn’t spend all of Christmas vomiting.  My host mom kept badgering me to eat, but I wasn’t interested.  I helped clear the dishes, and my host dad kept asking me if I was ok. I just said I was tired, and as others got up to leave, I escaped to my room.  I decided to watch Love Actually before I went to bed, regardless of how tired I was, because I had to do something that felt Christmas-y.  I also ate the peppermint bark my mom had sent me in a package to taste something that reminded me of home. 

In the morning, I woke up and took the stocking my mom had sent me off the wall.  I sat in my bed by myself and opened each present slowly, imagining exactly what my Mom would say about it if I were home, but trying not to picture them all at home in that instant.  It was bittersweet, opening a stocking alone.  It was sad to be alone and in Perú so far from my family, and the image of them all at home together by the woodstove kept popping up in my thoughts, but I was still so touched that Mom had thought of everything, had sent me a stocking so I would have one to open on Christmas morning. 

Once my stocking was all opened, I got up and packed up my stuff to head down into Chota.  I couldn’t fight the feeling of just really needing to get out of my house, off my mountain, and around other Americans.  Once all my stuff was packed, I realized I couldn’t call the nice mototaxi driver, Elvis, because I didn’t have money charged up on my phone.  I walked into the kitchen, where I found my whole family awake and eating, and asked my host mom if she could call Elvis for me because I didn’t have “recarga” on my phone.  She said sure, but told me to eat first.  I felt a slight tug of desperation and wanted to beg that she call now because I’d have to wait an hour regardless and I needed to get the hell out of there.  However, I didn’t know how to ask politely, so I sat down on the bench and tried to think of a nice way to ask.  She set in front of me the bowl from the night before, complete with cold chicken, panetón and nasty biscuits.  The image and feel and sounds of Christmas morning breakfast at home popped into my head, my grandfather in his red plaid robe and Christmas hat; my mom in her periwinkle purple one, her contented little Christmas smile that pulls lightly at the corner of her mouth, and the unbrushed cowlick at the back of her head that leaves a little bump of hair poking up, the mirror image of my grandmother’s bed head; warm, freshly baked scones, fresh fruit, orange juice, and coffee in Yaya’s old China cups with the blue rim; Mom’s favorite and only classical Christmas CD that skips more often than not and leaves someone running into the summer kitchen to change the song…

My eyes started to water and I shoved the images out of my head.  As I opened my mouth to make a desperate plea for the phone call, Samuel got up with the cell phone and walked out of the kitchen.  He came back a minute later and said that Elvis didn’t pick up his phone.  Unexpectedly, the tears came flooding down my cheeks in an instant, but I brushed them away and tried to put a firm cap back on the water works.  I focused intently on my cold chicken.  After two or three more calls, Elvis finally picked up and said he would come to get us. 

We waited almost two hours for him to come, I sat watching the ducks clean themselves and the pig try to eat chicken poop out of the range of his rope, before we started walking down the road and found him parked by the school.  I rode down the hill with my host grandfather, Maximandro, and Celina.  We’d been in the mototaxi for maybe five minutes before we came across three people walking down the road who wanted a ride into town.  Six people in a mototaxi = not good.  Three of the six people in the mototaxi up all night dancing and drinking = REALLY not good.  Two of the three people who joined us were guys so drunk their eyes wouldn’t focus, and one super chatty, very shrill, and blatantly yelling little woman.  To situate yourselves correctly in this scenario, if you have never been in a mototaxi, picture a carriage, how people sit on either side facing each other but imagine that carriage is much smaller, not sufficiently covered to keep out the pouring rain, and actually pulled by a motorcycle.  Well, the guy sitting across from me, or in front of me depending on your perspective, reeked, and was so hung over he kept his head down and spent most of the ride with it bent out the door, afraid he would vomit.  The bad news is that if he vomited, I would get it all over me even if he did get it out of the door, because I was down wind of him and there isn’t actually a door.  So I spent most of the ride clutching my backpack in my lap with one hand steadying myself, swearing over and over again in my head that if he puked on me I was actually going to kill him.  Not a Christmasy thought, but getting puked on is not a Christmasy activity.

Just chilling on my stool, talking to my family :)

GREAT NEWS – we made it to the bottom without a crisis.  I got to a place with internet and was able to skype my family.  I called the house first, and just hearing their voices over the phone I burst into tears but tried to hide it so they wouldn’t know I was crying.  By the time we skyped and had video, I’d pulled myself together and put on a brave face.  They had me on a laptop, sitting on a stool, and I got to watch people open presents and I opened presents myself in front of the screen.  I felt as much a part of that Christmas as I could as far as I was from home, and it made it so much easier.  One of the volunteers told me that skyping makes everything so much worse for people here but after that skype on Christmas day, I highly disagree.  I was having the worst Christmas ever, and it almost felt normal for a couple hours there, just because I could skype with them and feel like I was sitting in the room. 

That night we made guacamole and cheesy garlic bread, drank rum and cokes, enjoyed a pretty sunset, and watched Pride and Prejudice. 

Christmas Day Sunset over Chota

It was anything from a normal Christmas:

I didn’t attend the Lyme Christmas Pageant, nor was I in it.  I wasn’t in a house covered in Christmas decorations from years past.  I didn’t smell balsam anywhere and Mom didn’t ask me to look at her new wreath.  I didn’t see little while lights anywhere and it wasn’t cold enough for snow.  The ground wasn’t frozen and I didn’t get to hang up any of the ornaments on the cloth advent calendar tree we always have hanging on the door to the basement.  I didn’t stomp around in the snow looking for a Christmas tree with Mom.  We didn’t cut down a Christmas tree or make the perilous journey home with it terribly tied to the top of the car, my hands desperately clinging to it in the icy cold through the sunroof and my window.  There was no James Bond marathon on the Spike channel.  I didn’t get to finally see family I had missed all year.  I didn’t get to pick Jamey up from the Dartmouth Coach at the Hanover Inn.  I didn’t get conned into a hike up Academy Hill with Mom to look at the stars on a frigid evening.  Mom and I didn’t have a hell of a time actually getting the tree to stand up straight in the stand because the stand is always broken. I didn’t get to unpack our ornament boxes and coo over ornaments I have had for years while sipping on egg nog and listening to Mom ask Jamey repeatedly to slow down going through the ornament box.  Jamey didn’t get all excited about putting up his little fuzzy skier guy ornament that he loves so much.  I didn’t help mom make rum bulls or roll out Christmas sugar cookies.  Jamey and I didn’t playfully bicker while we frosted and decorated the Christmas cookies.  I didn’t get nagged to go get wood for the wonderful fire in our woodstove.  I didn’t get to hang up my dark velvet angel stocking or help mom rearrange the furniture to best accommodate everyone on Christmas.  I didn’t have to run to change to the next track on mom’s skipping Messiah CD.  I didn’t get to set out the little snow man calligraphy place settings that I made five years or so ago.  I didn’t spend a while in my room trying to pick the perfect Christmas Eve outfit to look pretty for my family. I didn’t get to spend Christmas Eve with my family, crammed around our dining room table in our cozy little dining room, some beautiful centerpiece in the middle of the table that my Mom just whipped together.  I didn’t get to help mom polish the silver, or set the table, or make the food.  I didn’t get to eat my brother’s famous Mashed Potatoes.  I wasn’t there to watch some cousin get pressured by my Mom into making a toast, or have Bahbah ask what kind of meat I wanted, light or dark? Or do I want a leg?  We didn’t go in a circle and say what we were thankful for or talk about our year.  I didn’t get to walk over to the little Baptist church on Christmas Eve to listen to a slightly pathetic service or sing really off-key hymns to a dreadfully electric sounding organ.  I didn’t get my little candle lit while we sang silent night in the dark, with my little flame glowing as warm as I felt standing between my brother and my Mom.  I didn’t get to try and make my flame last all the way back to the house in the cold winter wind, or see my snug, happy little house smiling out at me from under the blanket of snow or the star shining out of our cupula.  I didn’t hear the crunch of snow under my feet or see my breath in gleam of the candle flame.  I didn’t get to clear the table or wash dishes, surrounded by the chatter of my aunt, my Mom, my grandmother.  I didn’t unwrap a book on Christmas Eve, or watch my Mom excitedly explain a book she picked to Jamey, who was never a big reader growing up.  I didn’t go to bed that night with a slightly giddy feeling in my stomach, one I’ve had since I was a girl, at the idea of waking up in the morning and running down the stairs.  I didn’t wake up the next morning to the crushing weight of a cousin or brother jumping on my bed despite the fact that the night before they insisted that they would not get up until an hour or so later than it was.  I didn’t run into Mom’s room and jump on her.  I didn’t wait at the top of the stairs for Mom to get breakfast in the oven and the lights of the tree turned on, or the fire started.  I didn’t run down the stairs in my pajamas, racing my brothers to the best couch, only to be distracted by the magical, warm, and timeless feeling in our living room, tree glowing happily in the corner and fire glowing merrily in the woodstove.  I didn’t have the beautifully laid out breakfast with the little glass cups mom found at a flea market years ago and uses for orange juice.  I didn’t eat warm and freshly baked scones, or cut up fruit, or drink coffee.  I didn’t snuggle up in a blanket and tease Jamey about potential stockpiling.  I didn’t hide little presents in my sweatshirt or my cubby in the mudroom. I didn’t get to hand people gifts that I had bought or made for them.  I didn’t get to wrap my arms around the people that I love in our warm, loving little room, all of us situated around the tree.  I didn’t watch Mom make her list of presents and who they were from so we could all write complete thank you notes later.  I didn’t feel like I was drowning a little in a sea of wrapping paper.  I didn’t get to snuggle with my dog, bright red ribbon tied around her collar and completely confused about what was going on.  I didn’t get to be with the people that I loved, or have my traditional Christmas. 

But we did our best, and I got as close as I could to the heart of the holiday – my family.

See! I even made it into the Cousin's Christmas Photo - sitting on Chris's lap :)