Navidad Fiestas

Certainly different from Christmas in the states but my family is so welcoming and treating me like one of their own. Although I kinda feel like a teenage daughter this Christmas has been great and Carmen and Alfonso have made it a home away from home. On Christmas eve or Nochebuena we had an awesome dinner starting with a soup with flan and a big meatball inside, then onto the main dish of DUCK (never had it before) with broiled vegetables and some homemade sweet and sour sauces. For dessert we had a chocolate cake which resembled the catalyunan traditional animal el tio or cacatio. 

  

(main dish and dessert)

  

In Spain they Celebrate Los Rayos Magos more than Christmas day itself. So Santa or papa noel is becoming more and more popular but the Three Kings are the real deal here. Papa Noel came for our house after our delicioso dinner. Alfons' grandfather called him on the phone to tell him that Papa Noel had passed already and left presents outside on the porch for everyone. (I think he may of been a little confused because I was telling him Santa comes down the chimney when you are sleeping at night) Regardless we heard Papa Noel knock on the window and we went out to see the presents he left...

   

 

On Christmas day I slept in as late as possible and headed to our Church in the centre of Llavaneres (Catalan) for service. Beautiful church but could only understand a couple words.

After church we went home to open the presents Kelley bought for the family.... Spiderman Potato head, VS sleep shirt for Carmen and a rubik's cube for Alfonso- my favorite, and a little cute coche for Richard.

Later we headed to Carmen's parents house in Badalona to meet her sister, boyfriend, parents and her grandmother. We had a big lunch with calamari, clams, typical spanish roll of butter & ham in a sweet bread, olives, cheeses, little toasted breads. Everything is in the middle and you just pick and choose what and how much you want of it in a tapas sort of way.

   

  

After lunch we had some entertainment by Alfons singing Christmas songs and then opening presents and asking presents to the tio...

To continue the Navidad Fiestas, last night we went to Alfonso's fathers beach apartment in Gava which is about a 45 min drive south to meet Alfonso's dad (also named Alfonso and his girlfriend), his sister and nephew. We had another huge tapas style dinner with some sweet treats at the end. A typical Christmas dessert in Spain is something called turrons and mazapan which we also had at Carmen's parents house. Grandad Alfonso apparently loves dancing so we had some good entertainment here as well. 

 

C& A  booging down, a delicious cake and a "tuk tuk" aka tiny beach car...

Papa Noel came (for the third time) bringing Alfons a chic scooter and Ricard some more cars! I wonder if there is anything left for Los Rayos Magos? We stayed in Gava until 2 am! No big deal in Spain or for me because I can sleep in right now but for Los Padres is a different story... Bring on the coffee!