And yes, I realize it's nearly Jan 25th...
Well, we made it through our 1st Christmas away from home here in Madrid! That makes it sound worse than it was - but I can't really think of a better way to describe it. It was just really different to be here and not home in Texas. As December went by, neither one of us felt like Christmas was coming - and we never could figure out why. We did many of the usual Christmas things: we put up Christmas decorations and enjoyed the amazing lights downtown; they have (mostly English) carols in all the stores here; and we even got to watch Rudolf on the Slingbox. But something about it just felt different. I guess there are just cultural cues that we don't even think about that make us feel that Christmas is coming... but not sure what they are besides those I mentioned that we didn't miss out on. Another major difference is YOU - we were definitely missing all our friends and family and the celebrations we usually enjoy with you.
Christmas itself was wonderful. We were so thankful that my parents could come to celebrate with us - they arrived on Christmas morning, so we opened our presents as a family and went to the airport. Here are Katie & I with tulip bulbs that Jason brought us from Holland! Katie was a little underwhelmed, but we're sure she'll appreciate the tulips when they come up in the spring! :-) The other pic is of Katie with her new Sleeping Beauty shirt from Nana & Papa - I just love her shining eyes peeking out in this pic! One interesting wrinkle we experienced on Christmas day: our heater and hot water unit went out :-). So my poor parents who had just flown all night, could not even take a warm shower to rejuvenate themselves! We did alright w/o the heat, even though the outside temperatures were around freezing. Jason did a great job of keeping the fire going and our A/C units in our rooms upstairs also have heat in them. But no hot water is pretty much terrible :-) Several of us took sponge baths by carrying pot after pot of hot water up to the tub - and washing the dishes was definitely challenging! In spite of all this, we enjoyed a nice dinner with ham (more about that later). It was a very nice Christmas.
About the ham... we were invited over to Richard & Riekje's house for their Christmas dinner the Sunday before Christmas. Richard asked me to bring a ham since that is what we traditionally eat for Christmas. I prefer the uncooked ham instead of the spiral sliced hams, so that's what I went to the store to request. Now, the store that I went to caters a bit to Americans/ex pats, so I thought they would really know what sort of ham I wanted. (b/c see, I just know what the package looks like - not really the "official" name of what I usually cook!) So the nice butcher ordered me a jamon fresco - a fresh ham. Sounds right to me. Well, it was quite expensive and he could only get me about a 9 kg ham - nearly 20 pounds! When I picked it up, it didn't quite look right, but I felt obligated to buy it since I had ordered it specially. Well, it was not so much ham. :-) So I cooked a nearly 20 lb pork roast to bring to Richard & Riekje's!! And since I thought it was a ham, I hadn't even seasoned it... Thankfully, it was enjoyed at the dinner party and we had a lovely evening :-). So then I had a dilemma - I still wanted real ham for our Christmas dinner (I had intended to use part of my monster "ham" from before...) So Richard told me they sell them at our regular Carrefour store - for about a quarter of the price I had paid for the roast. I can't say it was quite the same sort of ham as we normally eat - but it was pretty good and definitely close enough :-) Ah well, what are you going to do? (and aren't you proud I 'fessed up, Riekje? She says she's never going to let me live this down! :-))
We also enjoyed another Christmas celebration on the 27th after my parents had recovered a bit from the jet lag. Here is Katie with her big girl jewelry box from Mimi & Poppi - she's wearing jewelry all the time now! The other pic is of her new Hannah Montana sleeping bag from Grandpa. She enjoyed "camping out" with the sleeping bag on top of her bed several nights :-)
In Spain, they celebrate King's Day on Jan 6 even more than they celebrate Christmas. King's Day is also called Epiphany and it is the day to commemorate the arrival of the 3 Wise Men to worship the baby Jesus (and thus bring the gospel to the Gentiles if I understand my Book of Common Prayer correctly - this is also where the 12 Days of Christmas comes from b/c Jan 6 is 12 days after Dec 25). Traditionally in Spain, this is when the children receive their presents brought by the kings instead of Santa Claus. (now people are beginning to celebrate on Christmas with Santa Claus more - partly so their kids have more time
to play with their new gifts before school starts again) They even leave out food and drinks for the kings and their camels on the night of the 5th like we leave out cookies & milk for Santa. We decided to be crazy and brave the cold & the crowds to attend the Cabalgata, or parade, to welcome the Kings into Madrid on Jan 5. Each town has a Cabalgata, but we had heard Madrid's is the best. It was well worth the outing and not even that bad getting home :-). It was really hard to get pics of the parade b/c it was dark,
but the 1st parade pic is of these amazing life-sized mechanical elephants that were "marching" down the street. They were accompanied by mechanical birds on poles - it really looked like the royal welcome for the kings! The kings themselves arrived at the very end on these gorgeous lit floats. And of course there was lots of candy to be had - we figured out people either chose their spots to be able to see the parade (a bit back from the street) or to be close enough to collect as much candy as possible :-). BTW - b/c Jan 6 is a big holiday as well, school didn't start up again until Jan 8 - and Katie had 2 1/2 weeks off! She was sick the whole week before Christmas break and then the 9th of Jan was a snow day - so she was basically off 4 weeks :-). It was nice - but it's been nice to get back into a bit of routine as well!
Katie had a big 5 year old birthday celebration. She is soooo proud to be 5 and pretty much tells anyone she meets that she is now 5 (just yesterday she told one of Jason's colleagues that "I used to be 4, but now I'm 5." (to which he replied "I used to be 4 too". She didn't exactly know how to respond to that one :-). ) She began her day with loads of presents and a special french toast breakfast. After having macaroni & cheese for lunch, we went to see Bolt that afternoon - our 1st English language movie to see since we moved to Spain. (a great movie BTW!) The theater happened to be downtown, so we enjoyed the beautiful Christmas lights once again and had dinner at a restaurant near the Prado. This pic is of her blowing her candle out on Dec 23rd.
We had Katie's party with her friends on 13 January. 2 days before Christmas just doesn't make for a very good bday party time :-). We had it at a local day care center that has a room for parties with a ball pit and big maze & slide. The 1st pic is Katie in her fairy dress before the party. She had 15 friends from school and church join us! All afternoon, it had been snowing in flurries, so I was wondering if anyone would end up showing up. But a lot of kids showed up and it was so fun! The kids played in the ball room for a long time, then enjoyed pizza and other yummies. 
Katie got to blow out the candles again to the singing of "Cumpleanos Feliz" and I almost forgot to ask them to sing again in English :-). But they did once I asked and even lit the candles again so she got to blow them out twice :-). (this is her with her friend Julien) A funny Spanish cultural thing: the only option they had for a party time was from 5-7 in the evening! A bit crazy for 5 year olds, but just late afternoon here!
The last big surprise of the night was waiting when we went back to the car. One of Katie's new privileges that we gave her upon turning 5 was to be able to sit in a booster seat in the car instead of a car seat. We had intended for Jason to pick one up for her when he was in Orlando last week (b/c we couldn't find the one we wanted here). The more I thought about it though, the more I realized how difficult that would be for him in a crazy busy week of non-stop meetings. So I looked again, and found a good booster seat here. We had it waiting for Katie when she came back to the car after the party, and she was so excited! (before this she had been asking every day how many days it was till Jason left for Orlando b/c she wanted him to go get her booster seat :-) )
