A Very Merry Christmas.

Its difficult to be so far away from family.  Especially this time of year.  I love Christmas! I love the sights and the smells.  I love the warmth and glow.  I love the lights and decorations.  I love loving and being loved.  And a bit of that is missing when we arent with our friends and families back home.  But, luckily we have great friends here also and they have made this Christmas special.
It started with a Christmas party we had here at our place – everyone came and we ate, drank and made merry!

Then Babak and Chiara surprised us with slippers!!!

Since I didn’t have the means to decorate our apartment too much (Actually, I put my elementary school skills to use and spent hours cutting paper snowflakes and making paper chains to use as garland!) I made sure to walk around the city to see the lights.

On Thursday, our last day of school, all the children performed their Christmas songs and had classroom parties.  Don’t you just love this drawing one of my students did of me? I love that she included the reindeer antlers!

In Spain, Christmas Eve is celebrated more so than Christmas Day like in the states.  Families get together and have a big meal.  While everyone is eating, Santa sneaks in and leaves a few presents for the children.  And of course, after dinner, the presents are opened.  January 6th is Three Kings Day and this is actually when they give most of their presents and the 3 Kings bring gifts for the kids.  They are just now starting to adopt our Santa.  We were able to take part in a family meal with our friends Grant and Angeles.  I dont think I have yet introduced them on the blog.  We met Grant back in 2007 when we first moved to Madrid.  He is the best friend of Martin’s college mentor.  We instantly became great friends with him and his wife Angeles and since then they have really taken care of us, we call them our Spanish parents.  We owe so much to them!  I really really appreciate them making us feel like part of the family!

Angeles’ dad and brother.

Martin and his presents

Tigui (spelling!? Grant correct me if Im wrong!) and her present!

The Christmas tree and my presents – Thank yall soooo much!!!

I hope everyone has had a magical, wonderful Christmas!!! I miss you all and love you!