The holidays are a whole new beast here south of the equator. The family aspect is strong but tradition holds that you spend only the eve of Christmas, Dec 24th with the fam and then the friends gather and let me tell you, they gather with purpose. Argentines, especially those of Capital Federal are known for their ferocious ability to party. However, in order to party properly, one must prepare adequately, which means consuming a solid meal prior to engaging in the hardcore festivities. The Christmas meal is held on the 24th and as Argentines do, it doesn´t begin until at least 10:30 or so. In attendance were Grandma Alma, Gma Didi, Ruth, Marg, Juana, Beto, Juan, Areal (a Jewish friend of Juan´s, obviously not celebrating that night but Juan can hardly stand to have anyone feel left out so naturally he invited him to join us) and myself. We gathered around the table stacked high with 17 different types of meat, a delicious avocado-shrimp salad, apple sauce and blueberry sauce (they tried to convince me that it was the same as cranberry sauce. Nothing to do with it . But as you cannot find cranberries here blueberry sauce would just have to do. In reality, it was delicious though incredibly sweet). After the meal there were cakes, ice creams and about 12 different types of desserts to choose from. At the stroke of midnight we were able to open our gifts. I guess Santa is extra magical here in Arg. I suppose the gifts just appear beneath the tree for he clearly was not able to utilize the fireplace as it was full of the nativity. In my opinion, this was a fairly decent location for the nativity as there was no chance we were going to use the thing for its proper function. This year was the first that the Beraza family did not have a true Christmas tree. Instead, they had decorated the post that had was formerly referred to as the home of the parrot the kids had given to Ruth for her birthday a few weeks prior (please see pictures for a full visual of said ¨tree¨). Sadly, the parrot had recently met an very untimely demise when he unfortunately encountered a dog at the Quincho who literally scared him to death… Perhaps because of this tragic loss, his post was used as the tree to honor his short life… Despite the major differences, it was refreshing to see the holiday from another angle. The traditions that we participate in at home are so lovely and often very family focused but are totally commercially driven… umm viva Capitalism! Hahahah
After gifts were exchanged on came the friends and the celebration. I took what I thought would be a ¨power nap.¨ Juan was to wake me when friends got there before we were to go out but TWO hours of ¨power nap¨ went by and I was still sleeping. It was 4 AM and time to head out, fortunately (and I know that none of you will believe this) I have developed the ability to get ready in roughly five minutes. A new found talent, I tell ya. As the night was far from young, clubs were full but as you may suspect, here the party must go on and eventually as the sun made its first appearance on this glorious Christmas morn, we found a place to play!
We woke at noon on Christmas day… or so we thought. The entire city was deserted. The cement palace had become a sweltering oven. Juan and I walked three blocks in an attempt to find anyplace serving food. One restaurant appeared open but when we asked they said that the kitchen closed at 4. Juan told the man that he knew they would close at 4 AM but wouldn´t they be open later today? The waiter replied that it was 5 PM and no, they were closed for the remainder of the day. To date, this was the oddest Christmas day I had experienced (and my fam and I have had a few weird ones…). Returning to the house, we called our friends and arranged to spend the night in Tigre at the Quincho so we would pass the next day there in the sunshine by the pool.
Here are a few photos from my Christmas experience in Argentina 2010.
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