Just like my birthday, this is the first time I have ever celebrated Christmas away from home, and in another country! My family is super into Christmas and decorating, so we actually decorated the tree at the beginning of November (no joke). They put up lights, a blow-up Santa Claus, and streamers all over the outside and inside of the house. I remember whenever I had friends over in November they would ask why the decorations were already up haha. But for actual Christmas day, all the girls in my family (me, my host sisters, my host mom, and my host aunt) went to a place to get our make-up done professionally. Like I said, they go all out for Christmas. We then took pictures in front of the Christmas tree. They even dressed up Renzo, one of their cats, to look like an elf. During the day my host aunt and I made gingerbread cookies and a house from scratch. My host aunt loved the cat-shaped cookie cutter so we made a lot of cats. :) They turned out delicious! Finally, after cooking and baking in the kitchen all day, we had our cena de Nochebuena (Christmas Eve Dinner). After our dinner we went to the Misa de Medianoche (Midnight Mass) at their local church. It was not actually at midnight, but 10pm. They used to hold it that late in the past but have changed it since. It was cool to see how they celebrate Christmas and how the catholic services are here because I do not usually go to church, and the only times I have been to a Catholic Church have been with my grandma. They have a tradition in Ecuador where they bring a baby Jesus (some of them are actually life-sized babies), and they place them in the Nacimiento (or Nativity Scene) at the front of the church before the service starts. Then, when the service ends, everyone grabs their baby Jesus to get it blessed by the Priest. My host sister brought a little basket of baby Jesuses to get blessed. It was an interesting tradition to see!
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Ashley KoboldMy amazing experience studying abroad in Ecuador. ¡Qué chévere! Archives
December 2019
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