Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona -

At midnight, they rolled into Jericó. The whole town was waiting, not for Mass, but for them. The new mayor—a slick, university-educated fool—had tried to cancel the chiva’s parade. But there was La Espantapájaros , grille covered in tinsel, speakers blasting “Lista en Medellín,” and on the roof, a woman in a torn designer shirt, holding a bottle of aguardiente like a scepter.

“A la izquierda, la muerte! A la derecha, la gloria!” shouted Don Pepe, the driver, a man with no teeth and an angel’s confidence. He spun the wheel. The chiva—a riot of neon paint, hand-painted flowers, and a grinning devil on the tailgate—lurched right.

So Juliana did the only thing she knew: she improvised. She tore the hem of her linen shirt—a stupidly expensive thing from a Yorkville boutique—and wrapped the hose. She borrowed a woman’s hairspray to seal a leak. She convinced a teenage boy to sacrifice his bicycle’s inner tube for a belt. And when the battery whimpered its last, she ordered everyone out. Juliana Navidad A La Colombiana Chiva Culiona

That’s why she was here. Not for the novena . For the fight.

The Chiva Culiona —the “big-assed bus”—was legendary in these parts. Not just for its wild paint job or the way it fishtailed on hairpin turns, but for its mission: every December 24th, it transformed into a mobile novena . It collected prayers, gifts, and drunk uncles from seven forgotten veredas, delivering them to the town square of Jericó for the Midnight Mass of the Rooster. At midnight, they rolled into Jericó

They danced until dawn. Don Pepe gave her the brass bell from the chiva’s front rail. “So you never forget how to come home,” he said.

The culiona —the big, beautiful, ridiculous bus—groaned. The accordion player struck up “Fuego a la Jeringonza.” The drunk uncles pushed. The grandmothers pushed. Juliana pushed until her Toronto-trained lungs burned with the thin, sweet air of home. But there was La Espantapájaros , grille covered

The rest of the night dissolved into legend. The chiva climbed higher into the clouds, its interior a moving party of villancicos , spilled canelazo , and the smell of pine and frijoles. Juliana sat on the roof—the culiona’s famous roof, where couples went to kiss and children went to see the stars—and looked down at the valley. Every window in every farmhouse was lit with a candle. The world looked like a spilled box of sequins.

Juliana laughed. Not a nervous laugh. A real one. It had been four years since she’d laughed like that. Four years since she’d left Medellín for a sterile apartment in Toronto, chasing a promotion that left her with carpal tunnel and a curated loneliness. Her abuela’s final words echoed in her head: “Mija, la navidad no se vive en un celular. Se vive en la chiva culiona.”

At the first stop—a shack on a misty hillside—an old woman named Doña Clara hobbled out with a basket of empanadas . “Ay, Juliana,” she whispered, kissing her cheek. “You came back. But the chiva… she has no guasca . No fire.”