Its Christmas Eve

In Peru the big day of Christmas is the 24th December  - this is when all families come together to celebrate. The celebrations take place usually by having a turkey dinner at midnight, though some families would just have hot chocolate and panettone. And at midnight fireworks are set off as well.

So this Christmas Eve, I spent the evening with my Peruvian family and friends of theirs. We started the evening at 9.30am with time of singing, reading the bible and praying. To me this was very interesting because I thought back to my Christmasas in Ireland where we just come together to eat and don't do this - however we do go to church Christmas morning. For me it was a special time to sit and think about the true reason of Christmas - the birth of Christ. 

After this time, we then sat down to eat our dinner, which was turkey, rice and different kinds of salads - no starters and ice cream for desert - but for that time of the night what we ate was sufficient - have never eaten my dinner that late at night. 

My Dinner

While we were eating fireworks were going off outside, it was a very loud and colourful display. One thing about the Peruvians, they love their fireworks - always going off for different reasons even during the day, which is weird since you can't see the display just hear the noise.

We finished the meal about 1.30am and were in bed at 2am... I was exhausted but enjoyed the evening. Despite the fact was missing my family back home, it was great to experience Christmas in a different culture and see how they do things here.

Christmas in Peru is very different - they get 24th and 25th off work and then back to work on the 26th.... and some people even have to work on the 24th/25th - not just those in NHS etc, but even those in the mines have to work. And its not all about presents or material things either, its about family and time spent with them - there is no commercial pressure which was nice to see. But the one thing I did miss was Carol Services which they don't have any of here.