Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and happy new year. I stayed here during the entire break (holiday) and learned about how the holidays are celebrated in Spain. On this post I will talk about Christmas. This year, since I didn´t go home, I celebrated Christmas eve with a family here in Lucena. I went to their house around 18:00 and we played games until about 21:00. We began dinner around 22:00 and had many typical foods from Andalucia, such as shrimp (prawns), cheese, almonds, bread, soup/broth, and a meat dish. The food was all very good and ate a lot! After we all ate dinner I went to meet up with friends and go out. The next day (Christmas) I stayed in my house and didn´t do much.

This Christmas was very different than my Christmas at home. Every family in the U.S. celebrates Christmas very different so everyone you ask normally says something different. In Seattle I usually have 3 different Christmas celebrations. First, on Christmas eve I eat dinner with my parents around 17:00. In my family we usually have ham or meatballs (or both), mashed potatoes, green peas (or some type of vegetable) and bread. After we eat we go to church but sometime years we go before we eat.

After I spend time with my parents I go over to my best friends house to celebrate with her family. I go to her house around 19:00 and stay until about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. She has a large family so we all sit together when some people sing, read the Bible, and say Christmas poems. After we are done with that (after midnight) we open 1 gift. After I am vey tired so I go home and sleep.

Christmas day I wake up and my family and I eat a good breakfast with bacon, eggs, and pancakes or waffles. Then we open up all our gifts that are under the tree and we take pictures. Later, around 15:00, we go to our family friend´s house for dinner. There are usually about 12 of us at the dinner. We start dinner at about 17:00 or 18:00 and eat A LOT of food. The family is English so we eat an English dinner that includes ham, turkey, bread pudding, brusslesprouts, bread and many other types of food. We spend the rest of the night at the house with our friends. After my family goes home and SLEEPS!

We don´t celebrate the 3 kings day in the U.S. so we only celebrate Christmas eve and day. The most important part of Christmas is to be with your family and that is the same in the U.S. and Spain. I thought Christmas was very fun here and enjoyed being around a nice family during the holidays.