I had a wonderful first Christmas and New Years holiday in Chile this year. I was able to spend time with many different friends and neighbors and learn about how Chileans celebrate these holidays. I have lots of different stories and events to tell about so I will just share a few of my favorites over the next few blogs.

Viejito Pascuero is the name Chileans use for Santa Clause around here. It actually is Viejo Pascuero but they love to add -ito and -cito on the ends of words to make them small and cute, so that's how you get Viejito Pascuero. The Chilean tradition of Christmas and Santa Clause is a little different than in the US. The way it works here is they have a big dinner together as a family (or friends) on what we call Christmas Eve and then at midnight they go outside to look for Viejito Pascuero and while they are looking he sneaks in their houses and leaves them gifts. So when they come home, not having found him, they have their Santa gifts. I was thrilled to be able to experience all of this first hand this year.

Many of my neighbors were concerned about me spending Christmas alone so one family, who is actually Colombian but have lived in Chile a long time, invited me to join in their festivities. They have two cute little girls who are 2 and 5 and they were pumped about Viejito Pascuero. Around 9pm we went to their house and Skyped their family in Colombia to participate in their traditional activities. They read a few Christmas prayers and sang a few Christmas songs and everyone had their own instrument. I played the tambourine. After this we shared a Christmas meal together of Turkey, potatoes, rice and salad. I was able to tell them about some of my families Christmas traditions and explained to the little girls that Santa must come to South American first since he comes here at midnight and then he comes to the US during the night and we open gifts the next day. Haha.

Around 11:30 the girls wanted to go look for Viejito Pascuero so I went with them and their mom to look while their dad conveniently stayed behind to wash dishes. We walked down our street and back and did not see him. We went into my house to see if he had come but he had not. We walked back down the street and out of the condominium where we saw other kids running around looking for him. We asked them if they had seen him yet but they had not. We headed back to their house and their dad came out and said he was washing dishes and heard something upstairs and the thinks that Viejito Pascuero came in through the bathroom window (they don't have chimneys you know). We ran upstairs and there were little gifts on their beds and in the bathroom. They were so excited and added these gifts to their family gifts and got to opening.

Opening gifts like crazy

Little kids are not very quick gift openers because they just want to play with each thing as they go along. I stayed until 12:45 and at that point they were about half way done. I told them thanks so much for letting me spend this holiday with them. I really had a great time and loved getting to see such a special moment for those little girls and seeing how Chileans celebrate Christmas.