A mix of solstice celebrations: We tripantu, Wintersonnenwende Feuerzangenbowle

In many countries of the northern hemisphere, autumns and winters can be very cold, dark and miserable. We think that as a result of that, it was useful to have something like Christmas to break this part of the year down a bit and give people something to celebrate in the deepest and darkest winter.

In the southern hemisphere, where we have been living now for the last 6 years, (un)fortunately Christmas happens at the beginning of the summer and they haven't quite caught up with putting a nice celebration in the middle of the cold months. So, effectively there is no fun stuff to distract from the wintery routine in Chile until September (Fiestas Patrias). This means, these days our house is freezing cold, our days are short and we have nothing to celebrate for another 3 months (yuk!).

The Mapuches, on their part, have always been more linked to the natural cycles in this part of the world so for them the Winter Solstice marks the celebration of their new year "We tripantu". It is the celebration of the sun making its way back to earth (from their perspective, i.e. the days are therefore becoming longer and longer) and a time to prepare the land for the new planting season. We don't have Mapuche ancestry, of course, but are also happy that the days are getting longer again for us now.

To celebrate it, we borrowed a traditional German pre-Christmas ritual called Feuerzangenbowle, which essentially is spiced warm wine with fruit, sugar and rum, and the whole lot is set on fire! The Chileans have a similar drink called "Vino Navegao" which uses less spices, less orange juice, less alcohol and less fire. We invited a few friends and brought some food to share (not really part of the ritual, but we're quite into fusion cuisine: hummus, baba ganoush, bread, salad, tangerines, spicy potato wedges, chips/crisps, fried mushrooms). Add some Christmas carols to it and light some candles... and you've got all the ingredients for a cosy mid-winter celebration. A great time was had by all and we are happy to report that the house didn't burn down, either.