Guatemala 6: Christmas

Christmas began with an eventful Christmas Eve. The Guatemalans celebrate the birth of Christ by setting off fireworks. LOTS of fireworks. And we're not talking small little firecrackers, here! Houses all over the city were putting on shows better than most U.S. city's 4th of July displays. No, really. They were incredible! You go outside your house at midnight on Christmas Eve, and huge fireworks are going off all around you, so close that the ash is falling down on your head, car alarms are going off left and right, and if you close your eyes it sounds as though you've been transported into a war zone. In other words, it was awesome!

Chase and Tyler, of course, had to get in on the action:

We were all a little nervous about the fireworks being "cheap" since they were purchased on the side of the road. Sure enough, the first big firework we tried to set off exploded, not in the air, but on the ground, not 30 feet away from where we were all standing (we includes Livia)! I first realized something was wrong when Chase and Tyler, who were in charge of lighting the fireworks, suddenly started sprinting right at me, and I only had time to cover Livia before colored streaks of fire began shooting all around us! Livia burst into tears of course, but once it was over and we knew that no one had gotten burned we all erupted in laughter. There was a lot of laughter that night. Something about the danger involved in setting off huge fireworks (that in the U.S. would be totally illegal) and not knowing when or where other fireworks are going to go off makes it so. much. cooler!

On Christmas morning we lined up Livia and Ella in the traditional Baldwin runner's pose (which at their age means crawling) and set them off for a race towards their presents!

ready to go:



And they're off!


I think Livia won (big surprise there, she's an entire year older
than Ella). But I mainly had to include this picture because it's so stinkin' funny.

Lest you worry, Ella got Livia back later on:

Livia got some chapstick in her stocking. I was just as happy as she was: no more teeth marks in my chapstick!Grandpa got Livia, what else? an airplane! Grandma and Grandpa also got this cool house with a tunnel which Livia enjoyed playing in for the rest of the time we were there. We spent the rest of Christmas day in the beautiful city of AntiguaWe ate lunch at another gorgeous hotel. This one is built in and around the ruins of an old monastery. I loved this hotel, and thought it was wonderful how they had old fountains in the swimming pool, everything was candle lit, and they had lots of artifacts all around. Livia enjoyed the chance to run around too, and was in such a good mood she actually smiled for the camera when I asked her to! We walked around the city for awhile, and came across another firework celebration. They were having a processional, and at each block, before a statue of the virigin Mary came along, they would set off fireworks. We stopped at this one because they were setting off a string of firecrackers that was literally as long as a football field.

They set off some big fireworks too, and then we saw this guy come walking out. What is that???

Oh.

Yep! That little basket was covered in fireworks, and this guy would run around the street, right up into people's faces (including mine, thank you very much)! They call him "the little bull," and it was seriously insane. Just a couple seconds into the video you may have noticed one firework go shooting off towards the other side of the street. One of those shot right at me, with Livia on my back in the backpack, and hit the wall beside her, not two inches away from her head! But once again, all we could do was laugh hysterically, partially from excitement, partially from disbelief, and partially from relief at surviving unscathed!

It was a very merry and memorable Christmas!