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The Spectactular Night of Christmas Eve In Uruguay
By Rodger Bailey
When I got to Montevideo, Uruguay, 18 years ago, Nochebuena was one of my first big cultural shocks. I had just married my wife Isabel and I was visiting her city with her. It was Christmas Eve and everything shut down by 7pm. All stores, restaurants, offices, the shopping center, the movie theaters, buses, taxis, everything shut down by 7pm. There was little or no traffic. You had to make sure that you had your own transportation for wherever you wanted to go that night. That means, that if you were out, you had to have your own car or motor bike to get where you were going or you were walking. Everyone was expected to be with family that night. Isabel wanted us newlyweds to be alone that evening in her home, so we made the rounds of visiting her family during the day. We had finished that obligatory task by mid-afternoon, so we were home in her apartment for the evening. Isabel and I were married in early December that year, so this was still honeymoon for us. We enjoyed a quiet late dinner together that evening. When we got married, Isabel didn't speak English and I didn't speak Spanish. We were both in a field of applied linguistics, so we had a lot in common, but spoken language was not one of them. Our conversations usually involved an electronic translator, on which we would peck out a word in our language and show the translation of that word to the other. Because of this, what happened at midnight that night was a complete surprise for me. I was totally unprepared for what happened in the streets. Just before midnight, she made it obvious that we had to go outside. This is not a tropical part of South America, but Christmas does happen in the summer here, so this was a not case where we had to bundle up. It was warm enough that I was in t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Out we went onto the street. Her apartment is on the main street in Montevideo, the city in which half the population of Uruguay lives (about 1.5 million people). All the buildings around her apartment building are either businesses or other apartment buildings. The apartments themselves are either residencies or offices. As we went out onto the street, other folks were coming out of their apartments. So, there were a lot of people, but it wasn't too crowded. She urged us to walk to a local plaza, which is about 3 blocks away. Others were gathering there and they were all carrying bundles along with their mate. Mate is a local herbal tea that is a cultural staple throughout Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and southern Brazil. Mate is the leaf from a bush, and they fill an empty dried gourd with this dried herb. They add hot water from a thermos bottle they carry tucked under their arm and sip their mate from a metal drinking straw which has a tea strainer on the end down in the herb. Mate has a strong taste and a lot of caffeine and is ubiquitous down here. The bundles they were carrying were fireworks of all kinds. In the park and in the streets, everyone started setting up to shoot off their fireworks at the stroke of midnight. It was always in family groups and this included children, adults, and older family members as well. At midnight, the fireworks started and it went on for 15 to 20 minutes until everyone had fired off all their bundle. Everyone got involved. Children were running around with sparklers and were dropping lit firecrackers. Adults were shooting off rockets and volcanoes. The older adults were holding roman candles as they shot their multicolored charges in arches out into the streets. Now, 18 years later, the city still shuts down by 7pm. Isabel and I are in a different apartment in an area of individual homes, tree-filled parks, and tree-lined streets, with few apartment buildings. We have a terrace on the 5th floor, so we look out over the parks, trees, and homes in the area. Last night we watched as people came out of their homes and set up their fireworks in the street and shot them off. It was a wonderful, colorful, loud, and glorious chaos. Every year, I'm so happy that I get to watch, hear, and smell this amazing event on Nochebuena. The external links are YouTube videos to give you a feel for what it is like. Yes, the same thing happens a week later on New Years Eve
Rodger Bailey, MS and his wife, Isabel, have started a distance learning doctoral program at a small christian university in Tennessee. They are in their mid-60s and chose a degree program which focuses on intensive academic research for social change.
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Christmas Eve 2009, Pocitos Beach, Montevideo
| Happy New Year 2008!!! Celebrations in Uruguay
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What a great story! No less great because of the connection between you and your wife even though your did not speak each others language. I've never been out of North America and this post was perfect for a vicarious trip to Uruguay during Christmas.
Having also been ruled by the Spanish, the Philippines too has a version of Noche Buena, though the interpretation is somewhat less strict. Weirdly, the celebration involves eating pear-shaped hams and queso de bola, a spherical Dutch edam, both of which will be stacked up in pyramids at supermarkets in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Personally, I think I would prefer mate. 
 | | nick Dec 28, 2009 12:33 | |
Noche buena has been enthusiastically adopted by the Spanish although, for them, January 6th is the main gift giving day. A few years ago nothing closed in Spain on Christmas day but they now have a massive holiday from Dec 25th to Jan 6th inclusive. New years night is a royal rave and just about any night is an excuse to party and let off fireworks.
Carnivale! For a while there I thought you may have been writing about Cleveland, Ohio. Everything shuts down downtown after dark for the most part. Be that as it may, traditions can be wondrous and wonderful to behold indeed.
Thank you for sharing the customs of another people and your descriptions of the happenings were wonderful.
Keep up the great intels.
Happy New Year and beyond.
Frederick
Thanks, I always enjoy learning about the customs elsewhere.
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