All I seem to hear from the U.S. side this time of year is of the frenzied hustling and bustling that is the Holiday Season. Indeed, the Christmas tradition in our country has become a rather hectic time beginning at Thanksgiving and characterized by an inescapable explosion of trees, stockings, cookies, gifts, tinsel, candy canes, wrapping paper, chestnuts, decorations, nutcrackers, ornaments, lights, chocolate, wreaths, traditional music, bells, gingerbread, shopping, church services, and FINALLY, on the day of Dec. 25th, after one full month of physical and psychological preparations, a special meal and gift exchange in the presence of family. We also have the lovely tradition of the family Christmas Card (or is there another name for it?), a compilation of pictures and stories summarizing the year's events in the family that is sent out to friends and extended family in an effort to stay in touch and offer Greetings to special people during the Holiday Season.
It is lovely.
Lovely! Everything is so formal, so carefully and thoughtfully crafted, so beautifully detailed. But dear Lord is it exhausting. A successfully executed Holiday Season for, say, a family of 4 leaves mom & dad broke, drained, exhausted. So much so, that for many people a typical reaction to the coming of the Holiday Season each year, is a deep feeling of dread. There is so much cultural pressure to do it right. That dread might be different for different people- for someone who lost their job, it is the dread of having to purchase gifts for everyone in the family. For somebody trying to lose weight, it is the dread of having to face the extravagant feasts and goodies coming their way. For somebody who doesn't really give a crap about all of this Christmas stuff, it is the dread of having to placate all those friends and family members who do. For a Jewish/Hindu/Muslim/Atheist/Buddhist/Wiccan/Other it is the dread of being slapped in the face with Jesus Christ every day for at least a month, and perhaps of feeling like an outcast or nonparticipant in what has truly become a
national celebration.
For 2 years now, I have escaped this Merry Madness in the steamy flatlands of Paraguay. Christmas is still celebrated here, with some interesting parallels, but on a
very different level.
Christmas in Paraguay is 1 day. It is a celebration of approximately 24 hours. Christmas Eve is a normal work day, nearly all business are open for their normal hours. Around 7pm Christmas eve, the women of each family get together and start preparing the side dishes for the great Midnight Meal (
sopa paraguaya, rice salad or potato salad,
chipa guazu,
mandioca, etc.) Later that night, the whole family (immediate or extended) gets together and the men start preparing the
asado (usually a combination of grilled cow, sausage, and chicken) and everybody starts drinking (beer, Sidra, wine & coke). The Midnight Meal is typically topped off with
clerico, a
fruit salad dressed with Sidra and wine, and
pan dulce, fruitcake. Very few families attend church services.
Our Christmas asado with rice salad and wine & coke.
Some well-off families start their preparations earlier on Christmas Eve with the building of a
pesebre that morning. The
pesebre is an outdoor arced shelter made of tree branches, filled with a nativity scene, surrounded by seasonal fruits (watermelon, banana, pineapple, grapes), and decorated with typical treats hanging from string (
alfahor cookies, hard candies, rosaries made of candy, & candy bars). On Christmas Day, it is traditional for small children to go house-to-house with grocery bags collecting goodies from their neighbors'
pesebres.
At my neighbor's pesebre holding a cup of clerico
Ever at my neighbor's pesebre holding his cup of clerico.. Here you can see the fruits better.
Na Juana with her family's pesebre
Christmas Day is the national holiday- no work, everything's closed. The tradition on this day is to go around town greeting any neighbors or family that you didn't see on Christmas eve and admiring their
pesebres (they will usually invite anybody who comes to greet them to take a goodie from their
pesebre). All day and all night on Christmas eve and all day on Christmas day, the air is filled with the sounds of
bombas (firecrackers) and traditional paraguayan music (mostly the same stuff they would normally play).
Personally, Ever and I decided to make our own Christmas meal just the two of us, although we had been invited to share with a number of families. A little after midnight, we went next door to greet everybody where we were offered
clerico and sat down with them for about an hour. (At this point it was still swelteringly hot! Perhaps 90-something degrees). Then around 1:30am we went to Na Juana's house down the street, where Ever goes to play soccer and volleyball nearly every day, and spent the wee morning hours passing sidra and wine with them and a few other neighbors. We came home and went to sleep around 4am, just a couple hours after it had become cool enough to sleep comfortably (i.e. less than 90 degrees)!
So of course this wouldn't be a Conger blog post without a little thoughtful analysis about these traditions. What do the differences between the US tradition and the PY tradition tell us about their respective societies and cultural values? For one, it is widely recognized that a prosperous U.S. has had its Christmas tradition largely appropriated by commercializing capitalist forces which have either exploited or helped to create a horrific culture of greed and consumerism in America. (Not up for the chicken-egg discussion here on which caused which: a culture of greed and consumerism? or commercializing capitalist forces?.)
HOWEVER, besides that one great economic difference, ultimately what I see is a simple and slight difference in celebratory priorities and emphasis.
In Paraguay, the sole emphasis is on community and familial togetherness. (Priority #2? Food & drink.) However, as long as the whole family is together, there is little else that could ruin the holiday. No gifts to mess up. No formal wear to worry about. Even if the
asado were to burn or the salad to come out undersalted, or the beer to run out... Paraguayans would make do and it would have minimal effect on their enjoyment of the holiday. Even those families who can't afford a great deal of drink and meat, can send their kids out the next day to collect special goodies from family and friends who are better-off and able to share. With little preparation, little expense, and little stress, a great time is had by ALL.
We share these values in the U.S. too! It's just that they come shrouded in and clouded by other priorities, such as expensive gift-buying, santa-sneaking, excessive decorations, seasonal wear, gourmet feasts, etc., that can diminish our ability to focus on and enjoy the time spent with family. By prioritizing these other things, we can slowly begin to lose sight of and even devalue (as a society) community and family togetherness.
Which is why I say this is one issue in which we can take a page out of the Paraguayan playbook, and make sure we're celebrating what
really matters.
