Taking Flight - a Kiwi's First Adventure

The clock strikes midnight and my freshly 18 year old face is thrust forwards into the birthday cake. The onlookers laugh as I emerge, chocolate icing dripping from my chin, and even my indignant self can manage a smile. I wipe my face clean and begin to divide up the cake onto paper napkins, receiving numerous hugs and kisses from well-wishers as I do so.

I wonder if this is tradition here – the glittering nochebuenas and brightly coloured papel picado that bedeck the dim courtyard certainly are. The evening mugs of warm, fruity ponche made with long sticks of sugar cane, the bitter hot chocolate frothed with a wooden molinillo and served with fresh pastries, the gifts lavished upon me unconditional of whether the bearers have known me six months or six minutes – these will also remain forever in my mind as treasured mementos of Mexico.
But I have trouble distinguishing between what is truly traditional and what is not. This is only my personal experience, with this single family, of one unique year’s Christmas celebration in this individual town. Is being bought mezcal shots a normal occurrence on birthdays? Do all families eat buffet-style food from paper plates? Is Christmas really celebrated on the 24th instead of the 25th? If so, I could certainly get used to it, as a roast lamb dinner with my family every birthday gets a bit monotonous after a while. Being able to celebrate with my friends has always been a dream, never a reality, until now. Of course, my past experiences of the festive season have also been limited to one family from one country with a census of only 18 years, and maybe celebrations are different even just in other parts of New Zealand. Certainly, I have friends who dine on beef for Christmas lunch and buy authentic pine trees to top with an angel, although that I will never understand.

We devour the cake, face imprint and all, and the adults bear down on the drinks table to continue the festivities. Still immune to the temptation of drinking, I head out onto the street with the other younger people, a large cardboard box full of fireworks and sparklers between us. This one I am positive is a tradition, even if only for this family. The way they light the cylinders on the pavement and dance around them, being as daring as possible whilst still trying to evade the sparks, is not suggestive of practise; it is their shining faces and glowing smiles that show for them, this is Christmas. And this year, it is for me too.