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Christmas Lights Decorations at Parque Central

Christmas Lights Decorations at Parque Central

In additions to the over 100,000 Christmas lights installed in every tree of the Parque Central, this year they added Christmas lights sculptures like the one shown above so people can take their selfie… TAP to see the full size photos and post.

Christmas Lights Decorations at Calle del Arco

Christmas Lights Decorations at Calle del Arco

The last week of November municipal employees were busy installing the Christmas light decorations through out the city. The angel wings illuminate Calle del Arco from Parque Central to Iglesia de La Merced… TAP to see the full size photo and post.

christmas-decorations-in-antigua-guatemala

Door Christmas Decorations

Needless to say 2020 is an atypical year. But somethings we can still do, such as put Christmas decorations and lights everywhere …

Guatemalan Christmas Syncretism BY RUDY GIRON

Guatemalan Christmas Syncretism

Gabriela Orozco García, 19 years old, puts the final touches on a figure of a Mayan-inspired Nativity scene. The Orozco García family from Antigua Guatemala are renown artisans who produce ceramic Nativity scenes with Mayan attires from all regions of Guatemala.

Guatemalan ponche for Christmas

Guatemalan ponche, fruit punch is the most popular drink for the Christmas season. The fruit punch above was prepared from package from …

Christmas Fireworks Street Shop

Guatemala’s a pyromaniac hell or paradise, what is it? Since Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are the perfect night for fireworks …

Christmas Decoration Street Shop

Besides the omnipresent fireworks and firecracker street booths, one can also find Christmas decoration street shops when anyone can pick up Christmas …

Guatemalan Christmas Breakfast

Here’s a typical Guatemalan breakfast for Christmas, which is normally a quite day except for the fireworks and firecrackers which begin at …

Guatemalan Christmas Food

Among the most popular foods found for dinner in Christmas Eve and during Christmas are tamales colorados (red tamales), tamales negros (black …

In The Christmas Mood

Poinsettias or Flor de Pascua are in full bloom in The Land of the Eternal Spring for the Christmas season. The most …

Installing the Christmas Lights

The installation crew for the Christmas lights is hard at work to have all 600 series installed before December 3 and that’s …

Guatemalan Christmas Kitsch

The market in Antigua was a bit mad last night. There’s a whole little enclave of Xmas kitsch at the rear that …

Merry Christmas Decorations

Even though you may seem Christmas decorations as early as September in Guatemala, the official Christmas season celebrations begins with the Burning …

La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park Dressed for Christmas

Okay, I promise this is the last shot of La Antigua Guatemala’s Central Park at night for a while. I just thought I needed to show all the angles and besides and I also wanted to show what is possible when you are walking around and the lighting conditions don’t allow for photographs to be taken without a tripod. See, thanks to the mini tripod LAGDP received from Santa Claus, a tripod is always present for those photo opts that do require a little more than a steady hand (and boy, because of all the coffee drinking I do, a steady hand is one thing I lost long time agoooooo).

Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas from LAGDP

With the help of a little tripod and an out of focus shot, you can turn even the most banal and commercial Christmas tree into an awesome Christmas card. I hope you like it even though it is not to easily distinguishable as a Christmas tree.

Christmas’ Eve or Noche Buena in La Antigua Guatemala

Christmas’ Eve or Noche Buena in La Antigua Guatemala is celebrated by staying up all night burning firecracker, eating tamales or turkey and drinking real fruit punch or hot real chocolate, visiting family, friend and neighbors for the respective abrazo de Noche Buena and buenos deseos (Christmas hug and wishes); many even go to midnight mass. At midnight the presents under the Christmas tree, around the nacimiento (nativity scene), are opened and everyone laughs and hugs indiscriminately everyone around. These celebrations rate the highest on nostalgic memory scale; everyone living abroad wishes to be in Guatemala for this season and for this night in particular.

Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food: Dobladas

Dobladas (turned over) is our last meal at the Virgen of Guadalupe Celebrations. Dobladas are made from nixtamalized masa (maize dough) like tortillas, but other ingredients are added before the masa dish is folded over itself and cooked. The ingredients that are added to the doblada are normally ground pork rinds, cheese, mashed potatoes, whole beans, et-cetera, but could be anything really. For instance I would like to find dobladas with cheese and loroco flowers; that would be very tasteful. Dobladas are normally fried or cooked over a comal (griddle made from cooked clay); just like tortillas. Dobladas are very similar to pupusas, except they are turned over. Check out the giant pupusas or Mayan pizza photos. Once dobladas ared cooked they are top with repollo salad (cabbage salad or coleslaw), tomato sauce and/or chile sauce (hot and spicy sauce).

Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food: Fried Plantains

But like in anything else in life, something good emerged from such a tragic history. Fried plantains, rellenitos (fried plantain mass filled with black beans), atol de platano (plantain-based hot and thick drink) and even the wrappings of traditional Guatemalan tamal came from the banana trees. Man, I could on and on talking about bananas recipes and dishes in Guatemala like Bubba did in Forest Gump about shrimp.

Buñuelos Are Another Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food

By the way, although I have not mentioned it yet, every night as I write the daily entry I can hear the bombas (bombs) firecracker, the cohetes (firecrackers) being burnt, the church bells tolling, the canchinflines (whistle) firecracker and all kinds of unknown (to me) firecracker being burnt and creating a loud bang which I can hear as echoes through the far away streets. In additions to the smells and scents, the Christmas season in Guatemala has a soundtrack of its own.

Poinsettias and Pine Needle are Christmas Decorations in Guatemala

Manolo and Carmen were reminiscing just the other day about the smells associated with the Christmas season in Guatemala. Pine needles have a very peculiar smell and indeed its smell its burnt in the Guatemalan collective memory of Christmas and birthdays parties. Flor de Pascua or poinsettias are a visual cue of the upcoming Christmas as well. Shops know this and they use pine needle and poinsettias among other Christmas decorations to reel in the customers; it seems to be working just fine in this shop.

First Christmas Signs of 2007

Poinsettias or Flor de Pascua are in full bloom in The Land of the Eternal Spring for the Christmas season. Commercial decorations are beginning to show up in shops and restaurants. Soon enough we will have the Burning of the Devil celebrations, Nacimientos, Posadas and everything else that comes with the Christmas season. Soon, even the trees will dress for the holidays.

Happy Holidays Wishes from Antigua Daily Photo

The color red is the official color of Nochebuena and Navidad in Guatemala and nothing exemplifies this better than the Pascua plants, poinsettia flowers… TAP to read the entire post and see the full size photo.

PHOTO STOCK: Garden Grown Red Poinsettias from Guatemala

Poinsettias Flowers: A Gift from Guatemala to the World

Poinsettias are autochthonous to Guatemala and Mesoamerica so they can be grown in gardens either by design or as wild intruders as well as in the fields as wild plants. In Guatemala poinsettias are known as Flor de Pascua,  or simply as…