My family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve just as if it was the actual Christmas day.  On December 24 everyone wakes up some clean the house and others start making the food for the day.  Everyone who is going to the place where we are celebrating Christmas makes a dish or dessert such as tamales, pozole, Ensalada de Fruta, pina colada, flan, bunuelos, etc.  After everyone is done with cooking and cleaning everyone starts getting ready for the day.  Then we all go to the place where we are celebrating and everyone gets there but then there is always someone who gets there late and we have to wait for them so everyone can eat together.  Once we eat we just talk for a little bit then we clean up and the table and then we start playing games.

One very popular game we play is Loteria (Mexican bingo) now this game is very intense. Everyone who is playing needs to put money in the pile if you have one card you only put 25 cents but if you have two cards you put 50 cents and depending on how many cards you get that’s the amount you need to put in the pile, once you get your card there are 16 pictures and numbers and you grab a pile of bean and someone will starts reading the cards out loud and if you have what ever card they call out you put a bean on it and usually the first couple games you have to win by a line so and once you have a line you yell “buenas” which is like saying “bingo” and you get the money that’s in the pile, after that the last couple of games the whole card has to be filled.  We also play other games one of those games is gifts wrapped around in plastic wrap, like Monopoly, Candy Land, Jenga, etc.

After that the everyone just hangs out and we watch either movies or talk some more before it hits midnight.  Once midnight hits we all gather around the Christmas tree and we start opening gifts after that everyone goes home and then on Christmas day everyone goes back to where Christmas was celebrated and we have the “recalentado” where we eat left over food from the day before.