Seasonal
Buy and sell holiday decorations and costumes in Guatemala.
The Guatemalan year of celebrations starts with Valentine’s Day in February and runs through Holy Week, Halloween and All Saints’ Day to a December that holds Christmas, Hanukkah and the New Year’s Eve turkey. Decorations, costumes, table kit and gifts for each of those dates change hands here new and pre-owned, from a single teddy for 14 February to enough Christmas lights for a whole front garden. Most of it is used for a week or two and boxed for the rest of the year, so a used piece that was stored well often does the job as well as a new one.
The Guatemalan holiday year, from Valentine’s Day to New Year:
it opens on 14 February with a day kept between friends and family as much as between couples, so the stuffed toys, balloons and cards in Valentine’s Day get bought for the office too. Lent comes next, and with it the processional tunics and the dyed sawdust for street carpets that belong to Holy Week and Easter. The second half of the year is crowded. Halloween runs straight into All Saints’ Day on 1 November, when graves are dressed with flowers and families go out to fly kites. Thanksgiving arrived from the United States, carried partly by families with relatives there, and it opens five weeks in which the roast turkey comes out three times, because it is back for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. December adds Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s.
A roasting tray for three turkeys:
one at Thanksgiving, one on Christmas Eve and one on New Year’s Eve, which is why a deep tray big enough for a whole bird earns its cupboard space faster than most seasonal kit. Measure your oven before you go to collect one. Warm-white lights work the same way, up from early December until New Year, and a plain red tablecloth does Christmas and then 14 February. Some pieces belong to one date only, and those are the ones to get right. A Hanukkah menorah, the hanukkiah, holds nine lights, eight plus the shamash used to light the others, so a seven-branch candelabrum will not stand in for it. Check that its cups take ordinary Hanukkah candles.
Lights and inflatables brought from the United States:
plug straight in, because Guatemala runs on the same 120-volt supply and flat-pin plugs. That matters for the decorations that came home in a relative’s suitcase. Pieces made for Europe run on 230 volts and need a transformer, not just a plug adapter, so ask where a set was bought before you pay for it.
Decorations that spent ten months in a box:
wear more from storage than from use, so ask the seller to set the piece up before you travel. An inflatable should stand firm on its fan with no soft patches along the seams, and mildew spots on the fabric rarely wash out. Ask to hear a musical figure play its whole tune and to watch a moving one go through its full motion, because a stuck gear is seldom worth repairing. Ceramic pieces chip at the base and get touched up with paint, which shows under a phone torch. Tablecloths and costumes yellow along their fold lines, and a roasting tray that rocks on a flat counter has warped and will brown unevenly.
A Christmas inflatable photographed standing and lit:
answers most of a buyer’s questions before they write, and the same goes for a laid table or a string of lights switched on. Give the height, the number of pieces and anything missing, and say whether the original box comes with it, since a boxed set is easier to carry home and store. List each date’s kit on its own rather than one carton of everything, because people search by holiday. The calendar does much of the selling: buyers look in the weeks before a date and stop the morning after until next year, so if you miss the window, storing the set carefully pays better than cutting its price. Someone travelling from Quetzaltenango for a single inflatable will want to see it filled and lit before handing over the money, so have it standing when they arrive.