Before having kids, Dave and I did not have too many Christmas traditions of our own. We mostly carried on the traditions of our parents. Yet prior to moving to Bolivia, we were encouraged to be thoughtful about what we wanted our little family unit’s traditions to be.
As kids and adults move from place to place, it is helpful to have hints of the familiar—whether in the physical or in memory. We traveled to Bolivia with 5 Christmas ornaments for each of our girls. Each year that they pull their ornaments out of the boxes, they smile and recall many of the sweet Christmas’ prior and they remember the exact “tia” or “tio” who gifted them their ornament.
We also allow the girls to decorate their beds in tinsel, lights or a combination of both. This is a big hit. They lie in their beds at night eager for Christmas Day to arrive and giddy about the “new look” to their bed. We turn on the A/C on Christmas Day so that we can enjoy our morning in Christmas pajamas (since December 25 is the start of summer in Santa Cruz). The girls love seeing Christmas colors and décor set up around the house for the lead up to Christmas Day.
In Bolivia and most of Latin/South America, Christmas is celebrated the evening of December 24 th with family. People do not gather on the 25 th . This can make the day feel a little lonely since we do not have our family close by, but we do have video calls with family; one year we were organized enough to get the same Christmas PJ’s to our girls as the cousins stateside were wearing!
We do miss the noise and bustle of our families and traveling from house to house, but continuing the tradition of stockings, gifts, cooking baking, movies, and music help the nostalgia. Sharing these traditions with our friends and church family has its own sweetness of seeing Christmas through another’s eyes.
A big tradition in Bolivia is to gift a “Canaston” for Christmas. A Canaston is any basket or container filled with basic food necessities (flour, yeast, rice, etc.). We love the opportunity to join in the giving with this very practical gift. Last year, our girls helped fill Canastones for a church in Los Valles. And on Christmas Eve we delivered canastones to the Paz y Esperanza office. God is always reminding us that Christmas is about His Son who He sent to serve, what better way to celebrate Christmas than serving our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Traditions are special and they do help us to remember our home culture and family, so we embrace them; however, we pray that tradition never causes us to lose sight of the precious cornerstone who was born on Christmas Day with the invitation for us to be “living stones who are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2: 5)
Katrina Smith and her husband, Dave, serve in Bolivia with South America Mission. They have three wonderful girls, Kaylin, Natalie, and Addison. Katrina serves in Mercy and Justice Ministry while Dave is one of the pilots for SAMAIR Bolivia.
