Pandemic dials back Christmas for some Latino families in Chatham — but not all will change

By VICTORIA JOHNSON

SILER CITY — A white Christmas tree stands inside Vielka Gonzalez’s house in Siler City, right next to a window. It’s not just any Christmas tree, either.

It’s a snowman.

White branches fan out, decorated with ornaments and multicolored ribbons, and instead of a Christmas star at the top, a snowman’s head smiles at you under his red hat. His stick-like arms wear green mittens and carry the Gonzalez family’s stockings, which will soon carry several fistfuls of candy.

Thanks to COVID-19, many Latino families in Chatham can’t hold the large family gatherings that they consider staples of the Christmas holiday. Still, many family traditions remain alive and untouched by the pandemic — just like the Gonzalez family’s snowman Christmas tree.

Outside, Christmas lights and garlands stretch around the Gonzalez family’s house. Inside, family members usually wear Christmas sweaters, exchange gifts and cook a lot of food, including tamales, carnitas and fruit salad.

“Of course, as we are from Mexico, the food must be spicy,” said Vielka Gonzalez, 16. She amd her family moved to Siler City last year from Chihuahua, Mexico. “… After dinner and desserts, we always watch some movies or go to another relative’s house to continue enjoying that day.”

Sometimes, they’ll watch Christmas movies and cartoons, including the animated or live-action Grinch movies. Other times, they’ll watch horror movies like “Annabelle.”

“It’s our favorite movie genre,” she said, adding with a laugh: “Really when we look for something of this genre, we see the first movie that (Netflix) recommends us.”

They may be socially distancing or going to fewer places, she said, but she still thinks they’ll be able to celebrate Christmas like they do every year.

It’s a bit more complicated for Jazmin Mendoza Sosa, who works at Virginia Cross Elementary as a student support specialist with Communities In Schools of Chatham County. She said her family doesn’t have “any fun celebrations,” but they usually celebrate Christmas with a large family get-together after attending a Christmas Eve mass at 8 p.m. in St. Julia Catholic Church.

“We eat and talk on Christmas Eve and then wait until midnight to give each other hugs for Christmas,” she said. “Usually, it is a large family gathering … A typical year would be like 30 to 50, but this year, we don’t know what we will do.”

Growing up in Guatemala, Lendy Carias and her family celebrated Christmas a lot differently than they do now, even before the pandemic. She came to Siler City back in 2011 to join her parents and siblings.

In Guatemala, most families — including her own — planned and built a nativity scene, called a “nacimiento” or “Belen,” which they normally put under their Christmas trees. It was originally a Spanish tradition, she said, but families have since put their own cultural spins on it.

“Many indigenous (Guatemalan) elements are now used in the design and construction of the Nativity scenes,” Carias said, adding, “One unique characteristic of Guatemalan Nativity scenes is the use of sawdust dyed in many bright colors.”

Families also celebrated Christmas on Dec. 24, not Dec. 25. They’d eat their main Christmas meals on Christmas Eve — a feast she said almost always includes Guatemalan tamales.

“In some regions, they are made of corn and others of rice or potatoes,” she said. “They can be sweet or not, and have several different ingredients inside like olives, prunes, peppers, chicken or pork.”

Afterward, everyone stays up until midnight, where they set off hundreds of fireworks in honor of Jesus’ birthday. The celebration doesn’t end there either — families then usually gather around the tree to pray and open up presents shortly after midnight. Now that Carias lives in Siler City, though, she and her family do things a bit differently.

“After we moved to this country, everything changed,” she said. “We celebrate Christmas the 24th, and here it’s the 25th, so on the 24th, we work. Most of my family is in my country, so we really don’t have that tradition any more.”

This year, they’ll be having an even more dialed back Christmas celebration. Her church, Iglesia El Camino, is also closed due to COVID-19 concerns, so they’ll be watching a virtual service their pastor recorded and put online instead.

“My family is really small, so we’re going to be able to eat together and share time with each other,” Carias said, later adding, “We’re just going to eat tamales in my mom’s house and then open some presents and that’s all.”

Natalie Perez, 17, lives in a multi-generational, multi-national household in Siler City. Her mother’s side of the family comes from Veracruz, Mexico, while her dad’s family emigrated from San Salvador, El Salvador. They celebrate Christmas on Dec. 24.

“That’s when Christmas is in Mexico,” Perez said. “… We celebrate Christmas on the 24th because it is the day of the last posada, which is the celebration of the arrival of the pregnant Virgin Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay in Bethlehem.”

The Posadas, or “inns,” celebration starts on Dec. 16 in many Latin American countries, including Mexico.

“I haven’t been taught much about it,” Perez said, “but what my mom has told me is that large groups of people around Mexico gather together to walk house to house, just like Mary and Joseph did when they were looking for a safe place where she could give birth to Jesus.”

While they go house to house, people sing, play instruments and bring the holiday cheer, she said. At each house, homeowners hand out food, gifts or “whatever they have to offer.” Some even join the tour.

“This is done the whole evening till late at night,” she said, “and it becomes a big party with everyone involved just laughing and having fun.”

Normally, the Perez family would spend Christmas Eve cleaning up and cooking to prepare for a large family gathering that night. They cook “festive foods,” Perez said, including tamales, pozole (a corn soup), molé (Mexican sauce), tacos, and barbacoa. They fix festive drinks, too, called atole (a hot drink made from corn) and ponche de frutas navideño (Christmas fruit punch).

When everyone arrives, they dance, eat and play games like la lotería, or Mexican bingo, which can be played with large numbers of people.

“We stay up the whole night until we are able to open our gifts at 12 a.m,” Perez said. “The following day on the 25th — we call it El Recalentado — we invite family over to eat all the leftover food and have another day of celebration.”

But this year’s celebration will be different. In years past, nearly 50 family members might come celebrate with them; sometimes, the Perez family only invited around 20 of their closest family members.

“My family is more hesitant to have large gatherings and avoids going to parties or participating in events where there’s a lot of people,” she said. “Since the majority of my family is at high risk for COVID, we haven’t been able to celebrate special events with others for everyone’s safety. So this Christmas it’ll just be us, but we’re OK with that if everyone’s healthy.”

Even though this year’s Christmas celebration will be smaller and calmer than most, Perez knows she’ll still bask all night in “all the love and heartfelt comments” inherent in every little act of Christmas kindness.

That, she’s sure, won’t ever change.