La Navidad

So Christmas was a little different than usual this year, but it was still good, just a little hotter than normal. Usually for me Christmas is spent with family, having dinners, going to church, and then opening presents on the 25th in the morning, pretty chill and relaxing. This year I traveled to Yarumela to spend Christmas with my host family down there and my gf. At first it looked like it was going to be a pretty downer of a Christmas because my host grandma from Yarumela was in the hospital and it looked like we were going to have to spend Christmas in the Hospital with her, luckily she got better on the 23rd and was released meaning that it would be a “normal” Christmas. All of the 24th was spent readying the house for the massive amounts of family/guests that would be coming and making food, nacatamales are the most common Christmas time food down here. Down here Christmas is celebrate at midnight the night of the 24th/25th, fireworks are a big deal down here too so all day and especially right at midnight people light off fireworks in the streets…not the most relaxing way to celebrate Christmas, but it’s fun. I’m still not sure when/how Santa Clause visits because everyone is awake at midnight and nobody has chimneys. After the fireworks and lots of hugs and saying “feliz navidad” to everyone presents are exchanged, I got to sleep around 3:30. Christmas day is a low key day of eating and recovering from Christmas Eve, lots of food. The 26th we roasted a 25 pound pork roast, it took about 6 hours but it was worth every second. Hondurans are also big on making nativities, usually depicting the birth of Jesus and then also showing all of the major events in Honduras for the year, these scenes are amazingly elaborate and beautifully done (see the pictures).