I have had a really nice Christmas here in Madrid with Manuel and his family. It is fun to see small differences in how the same holiday is celebrated and at the same time it is really nice to be so welcomed into someone's family when you are far away from your own.
About a week ago, Manuel bought some little red and blue ornaments for us to hang around the house. Since we don't have enough room for a Christmas tree, we decorated the hanging house plant instead. I wanted to put out the presents below our innovative tree, but Manuel thought I was nuts. Apparently here in Spain you never should see your presents until you are about to open them, because that's when Santa has brought them. I'm used to having presents under the tree a few weeks before Xmas and half of the fun is wrapping them so that the person who will receive the gift has no idea what they have gotten. Christmas cultural lesson #1 for Sara.
On Christmas Eve ("noche buena"), we were invited for dinner at Manuel's brother's house. He lives outside of Madrid in a beautiful house that is very modern in its architecture and decor. Among the guests, there was Manuel's brother and his family, his wife's 2 brothers and their significant others, his wife's parents, and of course Manuel and me. Dinner started around 10pm with appetizers first: prawns, king prawns, some really small shrimp that I don't know how to say in English nor have I ever seen before, Spanish ham (jamon serrano y lomo), cheese, white asparagus, bread, and red wine to accompany it. Then they brought out a big lobster to be shared among everyone. By the time the lobster came around, I thought we had already finished dinner because it was that much food! But oohhh no, out comes the lobster and a potato salad (ensaladilla rusa). After they finished the lobster a few people were mentioning that they were going to serve beef for the men - whaaat!!! More food?
In any case, the beef never arrived and the focus of the night was changed to Santa Claus and the kids. One of the girls got dressed up as Santa Claus and everyone took out their presents for the kids from the car to give it to Santa. This is the first time anyone had seen any presents (see, I learned from my cultural lesson #1). The kids went nuts. They were so wide-eyed at seeing Santa Claus and more excited about the presents. For the next half an hour, all you could hear were the kids ripping open their presents, opening them up to play with them and to make a mess on the floor, and the adults playing with the kids. In the meantime, miraculously little pastries and champagne was on the table and of course, I had to have some. As the night wound down, we exchanged the adult gifts and then it was time to go home...I think it was 1.30am. Merry Christmas Eve!
The next day we had two celebrations for Christmas: with Manuel's parents and a nice Skype invitation with my mom. We went over to Manuel's parents' house at about 2.30pm for Christmas dinner (realmente es la comida - no la cena - pero ya me pueden entender). Manuel's mom always cooks for an army. I would estimate that she served almost the same quantity of food that we had on Xmas Eve but we were only four at the table! So what was on the table? Well, this will seem somewhat similar to the Xmas Eve dinner: Spanish ham and cheese, white asparagus, smoked salmon, smoked sardines, bread, wine, prawns, and a big stuffed chicken (stuffed with dried fruits and more meat). I could barely get past the appetizers I was so full. Manuel and I couldn't even touch the dessert that she served, and when we went home we slept for a couple of hours. Our bodies were too focused on our digestion for us to do anything else.
Of course, while we were sleeping is when mom and I were supposed to talk on webcam --great invention by the way. I asked her to let me sleep another hour and become a live human being again. We got on Skype later on and we each opened up our presents in front of one another. It was nice to see her and Lance preparing the house for their guests, since it was noon in California. Almost made me feel like I was at home!
