Archive for holidays

All wrapped up

21 April 2008 at 8:37 pm · Filed under holidays, jobs, my kids, purchases

Gift-giving in Chile is a time-honored tradition. And free gift wrap at almost every store is part of the tradition.

On Saturday we took the whole family for a walk to the nearby mall in search of a birthday gift for a friend of the girls’ from church. He turned four on Sunday, and this mall has the best toy store around. So after we picked out a set of five Hot Wheels cars for $9, I stood in line to pay while Mark took the girls to get some lunch in the food court.

I took the opportunity to buy a gift for Jenna’s upcoming third birthday while they weren’t looking. Then I got the two gifts wrapped after standing in a separate line/mob. No one really knew who had arrived first, and there were several people waiting around for one of the two gift-wrapper ladies to finish. But it was eventually my turn, and I sailed through the process, having already become accustomed to the routine.

“Boy or girl?” “One of each.” “Okay. Is this paper alright?” Dinosaurs and princesses. “Fine.” After a few moments of watching the process, I am internally laughing.

My mother spent a good amount of time teaching me some basic life skills: bed-making and gift-wrapping are similar. It’s all in the corners. But apparently, even though this lady is a professional gift-wrapper, she hasn’t figured that out yet.

In Chile, the most common way to wrap a gift is to put it inside a ready-to-fill envelope made of wrapping paper. They fold the paper in half and tape it together, usually along the back of the envelope. Then they fold and tape up the bottom to form a kind of thin sack. Once you show up with the gift/filler, they shove it in, whether or not the bag they’ve made is the right size, fold and tape up the top, and add a bow. They use these bows where you pull the ribbons and they sort of scrunch themselves up into a bow-like shape. Every gift uses at least a meter of scotch tape, I would guess.

Well, the gifts I bought stuck out of the lady’s pre-made sacks, so she had to actually use a flat sheet of wrapping paper. I laughed because, even though she had to actually wrap the box, she didn’t tape down the top flaps. She taped them to one another standing up, so it would LOOK like a sack! Here’s the photo:

 

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Christmas in the Summertime

16 December 2007 at 8:41 pm · Filed under food, holidays, purchases, weather ·Tagged , , , ,

I read online that there has been a big ice storm in the Midwest, and my mom says that she has 10 inches of snow on her driveway, and more on the way. It’s hard to imagine from here. Today was somewhere around 80 degrees, a few high clouds, and a slight breeze. A lovely beginning to summer, in my opinion!

But it’s also hard to realize that Christmas is right around the corner. I mean, it’s only a few days away, and we are going to the swimming pool everyday. Definitely one of the harder adjustments for me.

Imagine Christmas without “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!” Imagine the Christmas decoration aisle at the store right next to the lawn chairs and pool accessories. Imagine kids getting out of school for summer break a few days before Christmas. That’s what we are experiencing here.

But not everything about Christmas is different here. Some things, especially the imported North American consumerism parts of Christmas, are still (laughably) the same. Santa still wears a thick coat, even at the mall where the A/C is on because it’s so hot. The coolest Christmas tree for sale at the store drops artificial snow from the top into an inverted umbrella at the bottom, creating the sensation that the tree is growing in some outdoor place in the northern hemisphere. “Christmas” songs still play in English in the stores, “Jingle Bells”, “Good King Wenseslas”, “Frosty the Snowman”, etc. Did you ever notice how many of them are really not about the holiday, but just about the weather?

The only place that seems to have made some attempt to reconcile this dichotomy is Starbucks. Starbucks in Chile has the red and white signs with candy canes (nowhere to be seen here, by the way) and wrapped packages, but no snow or mittens. The people in the ads wear shorts and ride their bikes through a park of evergreens. The ads don’t hawk caramel apple cider or peppermint hot cocoa, but rather dulce de leche Frappuccinos and other cold drinks. It’s Christmas, but it’s Christmas in Chile, and it makes me want to buy more Starbucks just because they actually put thought into their ads.

Here’s to a great holiday, wherever you are. Cheers!

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Happy Birthday to Rachel

7 November 2007 at 10:05 am · Filed under food, holidays, people

As I have said many times before, my parenting is one the most gringo things about me, and I am okay with that.

Rachel turned five this past week, and it was a busy week of birthday preparations. We had no less than 25 people (friends, their parents, and their brothers and sisters, plus us) at the park for chocolate cake and strawberries. Strawberries for your birthday is one of the benefits of your November birthday being in the spring in Chile. We hung a piñata and the kids all smashed it with a stick, but finally we had to put it down ourselves. All sorts of fun.

Here’s a picture of Rachel blowing out her candles:Rachel birthday candles

On Sunday, Rachel went to the birthday party of another girl who had been at Rachel’s party. She was turning seven.

It was a High School Musical Party. (“That’s SO cool, Mommy.”)

They opened the presents as soon as they arrived. Each child just gave the gift to the birthday girl when they arrived, and she opened them up on the spot. Very Chilean.

They played party games in Spanish even though all the kids were from English speaking families. There’s the culture gap between us and our kids, and they are only five or a little older!

They hung the piñata and just pulled the string so it would shower the kids with candy. No sticks. Also very Chilean.

They ate hot dogs (well, not Rachel, but everyone else). The birthday girl didn’t get a hotdog because they had more guests than they expected. She didn’t seem to mind too much.

They sang Happy Birthday and Felíz Cumpleaños. She blew out her candle (shaped like a 7) and then did the most Chilean thing yet: She begged her parents to let her plant her face in the birthday cake.

They said no. Not very Chilean.

On the way to the car, I said to Rachel, “Did you see that? She wanted to put her face in the cake!”

Rachel said, “Yeah, Mommy. Abby did it at her party.” Like that was the most normal thing in the world.

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Happy Birthday to “Chile”

18 September 2007 at 5:48 pm · Filed under holidays, language

Today, September 18th, is the 196th anniversary of the founding of Chile. We’ve been calling it Chile’s birthday around here. My “Chile Moment” came today when Mark started singing “Happy Birthday” for the country.

He pronounced the word, “Chee-lay”, as is proper in Spanish. Jenna immediately started scolding him, “No, Daddy. No say chee-lay. Say chi-leee!”

img_0896.jpgimg_0896.jpgAfter trying a couple of times to convince her, he gave up and reverted to his prior ways. “Okay, Jenna. Chi-leee. Red or green?”

“No, Daddy. Chile is yellow. And brown.” I guess she meant the ground. Will there ever be anywhere where my child is completely normal?  

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The Empanada

12 September 2007 at 9:52 am · Filed under food, holidays, purchases

September in Chile is the beginning of spring and, as if to celebrate our exit from the cold and wet of winter, we celebrate two days back-to-back of national holidays. September brings the height of Chilean national pride, with national flags being sold everywhere and everyone looking forward to their days of vacation. It’s almost like if in the US our Fourth of July and Labor Day were rolled into one big holiday in April.

As you can imagine, the whole month is devoted to preparing for these holidays, celebrating these holidays, and recovering from these holidays. Part of the preparation includes the annual “10 Best Empanadas of Santiago” competition.

An empanada is something like a Hot Pocket, but homemade. It’s traditionally filled with pino (a mixture of beef, onions, and spices), a few raisins, a slice of hard-boiled egg, and an un-pitted black olive. It’s one of the very few foods that Chileans eat with their hands. (Fried chicken and pizza always require a fork and knife.)

When you pick up the empanada, it feels warm and firm. You hold it at one end of the semi-circle, and bite into the pointy part at the top. The first bite is usually mostly bread, because that’s where the crust comes together. But the second bite is usually the juiciest. The meat-onion juice may come squirting out the top if you are not careful, and the steam will make your glasses fog. As you eat it down, you will definitely need several napkins, and if you are in the company of friends or family, you may decide to lick up some of the juice that runs down your hands. 

This is the appetizer for the coming meal of grilled steak and boiled potatoes. Maybe a few tomatoes, but you ar definitely going to feel your meal later. No wonder they eat it at lunch. It takes all day and night to digest!

Yesterday on the way to pick up Rachel from school, I walked by the place I would put at the top of my personal Top Ten Places to Get Empanadas. Against my better judgment, I decided to buy one. The first bite was all bread, but in the second bite I struck paydirt: the grease-coated olive jumped out of my empanada and ran right down my chin and my jacket before bouncing off the toe of my shoe and onto the ground. Chalk that up to a Chile Moment!

I hope that wherever you are, you have a Happy Dieciocho!

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Protests are so common here in Chile, I had to rea…

1 May 2007 at 4:57 pm · Filed under crime, holidays, jobs

Protests are so common here in Chile, I had to read back through my entire blog to see if I had written about them before. I couldn’t find an entry about them, so this being Labor Day in Chile (and in many other parts of the world), I think it is high time that something be said about this phenomenon.

First, Labor Day in the States is something like a picnic day, coming right at the end of summer as it does. But when you think of Labor Day in Chile, you have to think “labor union”. Today seems to be set aside as the official protest-against-your-employer day in the whole country. It is always on May first, and so this year it lands on a Tuesday.

Protesting in Chile is just what you do. If you want more pay, you strike. If you want better benefits, you have a picket line. If you want to work less hours for the same pay, you have a march. The key is to disrupt the normal course of events (the traffic, the tranquility, and definitely the workday) in order to embarrass your employer (or the government, depending on your reason for the protest) into complying with your wishes.

There are lots of ways that this plays out. A calm, peaceful protest usually involves a march of the interested party somewhere downtown. They will carry signs on posterboard, blow whistles, chant their sayings, and be accompanied by police who ensure their safety as they block vehicle traffic and disrupt normal sidewalk traffic. In the end, they usually take the rest of the day off and sometimes receive what they requested.

Other protests, usually when students get a little too excited about their cause of the week, can involve rock-throwing (usually at the police), barracading the gates of their schools with chairs and desks, tearing down outdoor signs (both street signs and advertizing), looting stores, vandalism of bus stops, burning tires in the street, and occasionally a Molitov coctail or two. In such cases, the police presence protects the people and businesses around the protesters by wearing riot gear, arresting those involved (just overnight without pressing charges, unless they are a leader of the movement), breaking up the crowd with tear gas, and sometimes using the water cannon.

So far today is a quiet, cloudy day. Maybe the protests will all be peaceful today. But I will definitely keep an eye out for a police water cannon driving through town, and drive the opposite way. Happy May Day!

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Yesterday I had one long Chile moment. We have bee…

21 November 2006 at 5:07 pm · Filed under holidays, travel, visas

Yesterday I had one long Chile moment. We have been planning for months to travel to Mendoza, Argentina for Thanksgiving. Of course, it’s not a holiday here in Chile, nor in the country to the east, but we have other American friends there who invited us to come over. This would mean a five or six hour drive over the pass through the Andes and back again on Sunday, which I was really looking forward to.

Yesterday, however, I happened to glance at my carnet de identidad, my Chilean ID card. It expires today. That wouldn’t be a problem, except that it also means our travel visa has expired. We sent in our visa papers for the next step in our quest for a permanent visa about 30 days ago, on the first day we were allowed to apply. We still have not received the papers that say that it is in process.

So I called around. Turns out that we can stay without any trouble in Chile for the next 60 days, even if we don’t get the papers that we need. But we can’t leave Chile until we get that paper that says they are working on it. They have another 15 days or so, so they say.

I guess it will be Thanksgiving in Santiago, then. At least we can get what we need here. Pumpkin comes in cans, and cranberry sauce, too. No sweet potatoes in Chile, though. For our turkey, we will probably grill turkey breast because it’s easier to find than a whole turkey. Who wants to get up at 4 AM to put the thing in the oven anyway? Besides, it’s almost summer here. A barbeque will fit right in. Maybe we will go swimming while the turkey grills.

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Rachel is turning four this Saturday, so today we …

2 November 2006 at 6:55 pm · Filed under food, holidays, language

Rachel is turning four this Saturday, so today we took treats to share with her preschool class. Her teachers wanted me to come at 10:30, so I made strawberry muffins and brought them. Jenna tagged along, but wasn’t very impressed with all the three- and four-year-olds who wanted to kiss her or hug her. The teacher made all the kids sit in a circle, then lit the round “sun” candle. Rachel got to hold the globe and walk around the “sun” in the middle four times slowly as the teacher told the story of how Rachel was born and grew up to be four! She pointed at the pictures of Rachel as a baby, as a one-year-old, when Jenna was born, last year celebrating her birthday at the same preschool, and last month. It was great. I was thinking, Rachel is really fitting in here! Then they sang Feliz Cumpleaños for “Raquel“, and the teacher asked the kids (who were pretty bored by now) if they knew what language is spoken where Rachel is from. It was the only answer all the kids knew really well: ¡inglés! Then all the kids went off to eat their quequitos, little cakes. I know I am seen as really weird: I’m the only parent who makes homemade birthday treats and doesn’t invite every kid in class to the party. Parenting is definitely one of my most gringo things!

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As I opened the gate for Mark to back out of our d…

14 September 2006 at 3:12 pm · Filed under holidays, jobs

As I opened the gate for Mark to back out of our driveway onto the street, I was stopped by the street sweeper. No, not a machine that drives around washing the street. A man, who is actually one of a team of four who work every day in our neighborhood sweeping the leaves off of the sides of the streets. I wonder how much a street sweeper gets paid…

Today he wanted to remind me that it is Fiestas Patrias, Chile’s national holidays. Somehow this means that everyone expects a bonus. Even the street sweepers. I don’t usually have to pay them, I suppose the city does. But so far the mailman, the trash collectors, and the gas pumper want their bonuses, too.

I guess it’s a good thing that Chilean employers give bonuses for Sept. 18th – you spend them giving everyone else theirs!

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Today I was not surprised to see many piles of smo…

12 September 2006 at 10:29 pm · Filed under holidays

Today I was not surprised to see many piles of smoldering debris in the middle of the roads as I took the back way to Rachel’s preschool to drop her off. Yesterday, in addition to being the five-year anniversary of what we Americans call 9-11, was a much more serious anniversary in Chile – that of the military coup. “Dissidents” celebrate or protest, I’m not really clear which, by burning things in the middle of the street, throwing rocks at carabineros (local police), and getting sprayed with tear gas in return. The strangest part is that we spent our evening of the 11th with a house full of gringo guests watching Monday night Football. What a crazy life this is!

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