La vida es un viaje, disfrutar de los momentos...: Christmas and the three wise men in Spain

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Before I share my holiday travels, which you will find in soon to come blog posts, I want to spread some holiday cheer. This year I spent Christmas in Spain before hitting the road.

I took some time to walk around the city and enjoy the decorations and lights.

I love all the lights and roasted chestnuts! Sadly I did not get any pictures from Christmas day or Christmas Eve (noche buena). Christmas Eve is more importantly celebrated here in Spain. I had a very large dinner of tapas with a coworker and her small family of 60. She said that is only about half. It is nights like this that reminds me why I fell in love with this country and the people of southern Spain.

Christmas day is actually the first day of Christmas. This day is not really celebrated and neither is Santa Claus. Santa would probably not be on the radar but is due to the fact that it is highly commercialized. The 12th day of Christmas (January 6th) is the most important day for the children. This is when they receive their gifts which come from the three wise men. With this being said, I spent Christmas with another coworker and her family of five. They had a large special gluten free lunch planned so I would not be alone. It was so good and so kind of them. They even told Santa I was in town so he stopped by to give me a new purse. Her mother made these baby clams with pumpkin that were AMAZING! I actually made them myself today.

At school the students all prepared different songs to perform for our Christmas celebration. I practiced with the 6th graders for weeks so that they could sing Frosty the Snowman in English.

The three year olds were dressed as trees.

The four year olds were cupcakes.

All of the grade levels prepared a song or skit for the parents.

Sadly I was on stage for the 6th grade performance so I was not able to get any photographs or video but I did take this picture! A group of girls prepared a quick skit and then choreographed a dance to the song.

It lasted the whole school day and was a huge success! After school the teachers had a fancy several course lunch at a nice restaurant. The food and company were wonderful.

Before the break I received a wonderful Christmas package from Dad. Inside I found some goldfish cookie cutters! He sent me a recipe for gluten free goldfish crackers. I decided that this would be a perfect snack to make and bring along my travels!

The smell while they were baking was wonderful. Aren't they so cute?

Huge success!!! Thank you Dad!

I returned home from France and Poland late on the 4th of January. On the 5th of January there were all of the celebrations for the day of the three wise men. Along with some friends I went to the parade and then to an olive oil and pottery exposition before getting some tapas and drinks. There were many Disney themed floats.