Navidad Con Los Davidsons

At the Davidson household we celebrate the holidays CHRISTmas in a Colombian-American style, I put all of the usual Christmas decorations plus I made a smaller “Colombian” tree with a few Colombian ornaments such as campesinos (peasants), cotizas (peasants’ shoes) ruanas (or ponchos), sombreros, carrieles (peasant’s bags), coffee bags, a few Botero’s paintings and I toped it with a big “Campesina Santandereana” (A peasant with typical outfit of our state Santander), oh, and of course the tree skirt was nothing less than our Colombian Flag! Right next to it I put my Pesebre (Nativity scene) we always try to make a small version of Bethlehem (Colombian style) Katie loved playing with all the different farm animals and the poor wise men that were within her reach. :)

On December 7th, we celebrated the “Dia de las Velitas” (Candle Day) it is the night before the 8th which is Virgin Mary’s day, it is our belief that The Holy Virgin comes to all of the houses where there are candles lit and blesses the home as well of all of those for whom the candles were lit. You are supposed to light a candle for each special person in your life; God has blessed us with so many beloved ones that we had to do one candle per “batch”. One thing to keep in mind is that in Colombia there are no seasons, so it is always warm enough to hang out outside while the candles burn, here in Texas it doesn’t get that cold, but I have to admit that we just went outside, lit our candles, said our prayer, took a photo and run back inside!

From December 16th to the 24th is the custom in Colombia to pray novenas and play “mis aguinaldos” even though I have a bilingual version of the Christmas Novena at home and we have done it every day and in prior years, this year we just did it the first day with my dad and a group of friends and let the daily occupations to take over the other days. :(

Following the American custom, we went to visit Santa so Katie could tell her what she wanted, but the outcome wasn't what we expected, you can read about it on this post

The Christmas celebration starts for Colombians on the 24th, we dine and party while we wait for the 12 o’clock to say “Feliz Navidad” to everybody and open presents from relatives and on Christmas day we just open the present sent by Niño Dios through Santa. Since my dad was here I stayed awake until twelve and hug him and kissed him Merry Christmas, but right after we went to bed and open the presents on Christmas morning.

That morning my dad and I had Pascuas (see last post) and the family gathered around the tree to open the lots of gifts from our generous friends and family, Paul and I didn’t buy many presents for Katie because we want to raise her in the same frugal lifestyle our parents raised us for which we learned to appreciate the little things in life. She loved every single one of her presents especially the piano Santa brought her. And talking about Santa, he brought me the nice camera I’ve been wanting for a long time so (once I figure it out) I’ll be able to take nice photos of my cutie pie (big yay!)

In the evening, our friends Juli and Butch had us over for the most delicious Christmas dinner and a very enjoyable conversation, Katie played with their dogs and explored their entire house.

That’s a wrap, I thought I had nothing to say about our Christmas but I guess I did, the only thing I have left to say is that my best present was there, unwrapped all the time, it was all I wanted for Christmas and I got it!