2008 Woodie Awards
Students share international holiday perspective
Brittany L. Shaw
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: Culture
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Puerto Rico
Yoileanna Jimenez, a Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, senior, said, "It's like a celebration from Dec. 1 to Jan. 15." Jimenez said families are closer in Puerto Rico, and the immediate family, the extended family, neighbors and friends all take part in holiday gatherings. "People just know everybody," she said.
Jimenez said in Puerto Rico, everything is decorated for Christmas, and the wives talk on the street about what motif the Christmas trees will have. Jimenez said normally the same motif is not repeated two years in a row. Jimenez said extravagant Christmas parties are also common. "It's like prom but for older ladies and older men," she said.
On New Year's, Jimenez, said they watch the ball drop in Madison square garden, everyone hugs everyone and they go outside for fireworks.
On Jan. 6, according to Jimenez, the people of Puerto Rico also celebrate the wisemen who brought gifts to Jesus Christ in Bethlehem on Three Kings' Day. Jimenez. Jimenez said children put shoeboxes with grass, like mangers, under their beds and wake to a few small gifts and the grass scattered as though the wisemen had visited. There are also carolers during the night. Jimenez said everyone grabs and instrument and sings loudly.
She said they normally begin around midnight and group by 1 a.m.
Spain
In Pamplona, Spain, according to senior Unai Zabala, "There's another guy."
Santa Claus is not common, but the "other guy," Olentzero, "is still fat and has a beard," Zabala said. The choice between Olentzero or Santa, he said, depends on the family.
Most of the people put out presents at night, he said. And in every town they have a fiesta in the streets where Santa or Olentzero walks down the street. "Each family has its own thing," he said.
Zabala said Christmas in Spain is "almost like here but maybe not so much."
"There if you saw a guy with all these lights, you'd be like, 'what's this guy doing?'" he added.
Zabala said each town has its own lights and decorations in the streets, and most families have nativity scenes and Christmas trees inside their homes.
On New Year's Eve, Zabala said families watch the countdown on a clock in Madrid from their sofas.
