JustSayGO Travel Show
We're wrapping up production on this exciting new show. Featuring California, Singapore, Mexico and destinations throughout the US in the first few episodes! Stay tuned!!
Celebrate the Christmas Season in the sun, with sealions, marine iguanas and countless birds on one side of the seafront road, and special seasonal decorations on the other.
Nasciementos are a special Ecuadorian, and Latin American, Christmas decoration. The Galapagos Islands are part of Ecuador, so these decorations are also found there. Of the 13 main islands in the archipelago, four have small towns, and the local people still like to follow the holiday traditions from the mainland.
What are these nasciementos?
These special decorations are very common and popular in the Galapagos towns. They are generally put up around December 6, and stay up until January 6, which is Los Tres Reyes Day (Three Kings Day), another popular festival in some parts of South America. The displays vary from small to huge, but always have the same general layout: flat, usually on the floor, but sometimes built up on a table or platform, with artificial green ‘grass’ dotted with lots of plastic and/or ceramic animals---the typical nativity ones like donkeys, camels, sheep and cattle, but also any others the family has in the house, so we saw horses, a hippo, pigs, a frog and a rabbit too. Some even have a modern or western touch, such as a Santa or a Bugs Bunny. The display rises to the back, usually against the wall, to a platform or step, which has a stable with peaked roof topped with a star and perhaps a string of colored lights. Inside the stable are the figures of Mary, Joseph and a baby Jesus, who is usually much bigger than Mary and Joseph. Sometimes Jesus is an actual doll dressed up. The whole is studded with bits of tinsel, red plastic flowers, and colored lights.
I was on the island of San Cristobel for the holiday season and had fun going round Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the port town, trying to track down the various nasciementos.
Where are they found on San Cristobel?
1. Often in public buildings (such as the Social Security office, or power company), where they take over a corner of a hallway, or are a big display outside the entrance, like the Post Office has.
2. Just in the entrance to small shops, especially along the sea front.
3. In front of people’s houses on the side streets, typically fishermen’s houses. In this case, a mesh net protects the nasciementos.
4. In houses---either right inside, or just inside the front door, or on the porch (if they have one)
I walked around town one morning with Tania, the wife of the director of the small satellite university campus on the island. She is relaxed and friendly, chats and asks questions (all in Spanish of course), so I learned much more than if I’d walked around by myself. Everyone we spoke to was very proud of their nasciemento, very happy to have a picture taken, and told us they put it up “todos los anos” (every year). The one in the government Social Security office also had tinny recorded Christmas Carol music playing continuously (poor clerks!). The Electricity Office had no nasciemento, but a decorated Christmas tree and right in the middle was an extremely large baby Jesus doll! Even Tania was interested in that, a touch she’d never seen before.
At the video store on the seafront the salesgirl invited us upstairs to her home above the shop to see her family’s nasciemento, as she was enormously proud of it, a very elaborate spread. Her mother and grandmother also came to say hallo and point out various features. In a small private home on the ground level of the beachfront road we asked an old lady if we could take a photo of her nasciemento, visible from the open door. She was happy to oblige and even called her grand-daughter, Alicia, to be in the picture.
All around town we found this amazing spirit of pride and goodwill, a real reflection of the spirit of the holiday season.
Copyright
(c) 2007 JustSayGo, LLC. All rights reserved. The material on this
site OR from any other Internet site containing our material may not be reproduced
and may not be distributed, publicly performed or otherwise used in any manner,
except with the prior express permission of JustSayGo, LLC.
All articles and photographs are copyrighted by their respective author/photographer. Please review our Legal Notice and Privacy Policy.
JustSayGO Travel Show
Christmas Around the World:
Celebrate the Christmas Season in the sun, with sealions, marine iguanas and countless birds on one side of the seafront road, and special seasonal decorations on the other. 
They are generally put up around December 6, and stay up until January 6, which is Los Tres Reyes Day (Three Kings Day), another popular festival in some parts of South America. The displays vary from small to huge, but always have the same general layout: flat, usually on the floor, but sometimes built up on a table or platform, with artificial green ‘grass’ dotted with lots of plastic and/or ceramic animals---the typical nativity ones like donkeys, camels, sheep and cattle, but also any others the family has in the house, so we saw horses, a hippo, pigs, a frog and a rabbit too. Some even have a modern or western touch, such as a Santa or a Bugs Bunny. The display rises to the back, usually against the wall, to a platform or step, which has a stable with peaked roof topped with a star and perhaps a string of colored lights. Inside the stable are the figures of Mary, Joseph and a baby Jesus, who is usually much bigger than Mary and Joseph. Sometimes Jesus is an actual doll dressed up. The whole is studded with bits of tinsel, red plastic flowers, and colored lights.
Where are they found on San Cristobel? 
I walked around town one morning with Tania, the wife of the director of the small satellite university campus on the island. She is relaxed and friendly, chats and asks questions (all in Spanish of course), so I learned much more than if I’d walked around by myself. Everyone we spoke to was very proud of their nasciemento, very happy to have a picture taken, and told us they put it up “todos los anos” (every year). The one in the government Social Security office also had tinny recorded Christmas Carol music playing continuously (poor clerks!). The Electricity Office had no nasciemento, but a decorated Christmas tree and right in the middle was an extremely large baby Jesus doll! Even Tania was interested in that, a touch she’d never seen before.
At the video store on the seafront the salesgirl invited us upstairs to her home above the shop to see her family’s nasciemento, as she was enormously proud of it, a very elaborate spread. Her mother and grandmother also came to say hallo and point out various features. In a small private home on the ground level of the beachfront road we asked an old lady if we could take a photo of her nasciemento, visible from the open door. She was happy to oblige and even called her grand-daughter, Alicia, to be in the picture.