Journal Post: Christmas Continued.

In the United States, the typical Christmas decor is an evergreen tree, (real or otherwise) decorated with lights, colorful bulbs, various ornaments, a star or angel on top, with the gifts piled underneath. Here in Peru, the tree is catching on, but what most generally takes place is what is called a 'nacimiento'. This is a really pimped out creche (if you want to know more about what this is, I wrote a story about it: http://universe.byu.edu/node/4629). In any event they construct their nacimientos in a lot of ways, but there are usually some boxes to start with. This gives the whole project height and depth. This they cover with some interesting paper, wrinkly, and painted a dark color with stars. (Although they can look like rocks, and also have stencils of wisemen, camels, etc., or even tie die). On top of this, they have a Nativity scene that usually features largish figures of varying size, many kind of largish. Like the states, these are collect-able and can be passed down through the generations. There is a certain day after Christmas designated as "La Bajada de los Reyes" which refers to the coming of the wise men. This is where groups of children dress up as the three wise men and go from house to house to worship (venerate?) the nacimientos. It is customary to give them some change or candy, or perhaps chocolate or paneton (which is it's own post. Something I enjoy about the tradition estilo Peruano, is that it is a lot closer to the what Christmas should be about. The tree of us Gringos has roots (hows that for a cool word trick, metaphor?) in paganism. The druids of Europe were big on the evergreen and it's symbolism is varied. But in the end, today we throw up a tree, lavish it with artificial trappings, and display our wealth by stacking as many gifts as possible underneath. I think that this is a large monument in the wrong direction. But hey, I love gifts too, so I will keep using the tree. But in light of what I have observed here, it will be in the corner, and my nacimiento will be somewhere central> and thus I can maintain my summer residence in Babylon :).

Also, the picture of the plate goes with the previous post. This is what I ate for Christmas.