Dia de Velitas

Día de las Velitas (English: Day of the Candles) is one of the most observed traditional holidays of Colombia. It is celebrated on December 7, on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, which is a public holiday in Colombia. This day is the unofficial start of the Christmas season in the country.

On this day, people place candles and paper lanterns on their windows, balconies, porches, sidewalks, streets, parks and squares, in short, everywhere they can be seen, in honor of the Virgin Mary and her immaculate conception.

We spent the night walking the streets with our neighbors and our friend Surella's cousin, we light candles in front of our house, we listened to street music, visited with neighbors and ended the night sitting at our corner tienda (store) drinking on the curb and listening to music from a car radio, the corner was full of people. It was a pleasant night full of beauty and the holiday spirit.

Candle displays in our neighborhood...

Friends and Neighbors

Abuela Isa, Enrique & Aaron in one of the cute alleyways of San Antonio

Introducing Alexandria, she pretty much runs one of the tiendas in our neighborhood, she must be about 11 or so and she is there ALL day, she greets everyone by saying at your service (a la orden) knows the prices for all the items and is quick to make change, remember playing store as a child? Well this is her life...maybe she plays school?

Enrique, Rafa and myself on their door step

This is the store that is below our house, the lady who runs it is the owners daughter-n-law, they are a super sweet family with two little daughters. They celebrated the holiday at the store, there was beautiful music and the kids loved lighting and playing with the candles (but what kid wouldn't......

Here is a video of us lighting our candles and the traditional music from the plains of Colombia.