Nora and Gaby, sisters-in-law, waiting with the treats prepared for midnight on Christmas Eve.
This year I got to experience the holidays in Argentina. Both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are celebrated pretty similarly here: a late supper followed by a toast at midnight accompanied by nuts, dried fruit, and nougat (from the Spanish and Italian heritage). Then firecrackers! On Christmas Eve they give out gifts after the midnight toast. The Protestants don't have Christmas Eve church services, and my friends tell me that even the Catholics don't go very much anymore -- the traditional midnight mass was moved to earlier in the evening supposedly due both to people wanting to be home with family and the danger of being out on the streets (there is a lot of drinking associated with Christmas Eve).
I spent Christmas Eve at my friend Nora's mother's house. Remember, it's summer here -- here we are sitting outside to stay cool, waiting for midnight. The people in the foreground are Hugo and Nora, then Nora's mother.
Here is our champagne toast at midnight:
And fireworks in the neighborhood, all accompanied by cumbia music.
I spent New Year's Eve with my friends' Annie and Bill and their extended family. Here is Charly preparing the barbecued lamb with his father -- an entire lamb, mind you!
Here are Bill and Annie. Annie's got her cell phone at the ready -- both Christmas and New Year's it's "tradition" to send everyone greetings by way of text messages. Bill makes the best cabbage salad, somehow managing to slice it super-fine. So whenever he's not traveling the cabbage salad is his job!
