Once Upon a December

Hello friends and family. I’m sorry that the last couple of months I’ve sort of “fallen off the earth,” as you could say. I’m sure that you are curious to hear about what I did over Christmas break. Christmas season here really started for me when our school had it’s Christmas party at the Hotel Mirador de Adra. It was quite the fancy occasion–everyone dressed in their Sunday best. There were lots of dinner courses: aperitifs this and digestif that. It was as much of a fun-filled gathering as Thanksgiving was…and maybe even better. We all had a secret santa, which was actually a lot of fun. After dinner we spent the rest of the night in the cafe/salon part of the hotel and sang karaoke…mostly Spanish karaoke, which made things a little more challenging for Sarah and I…that is until we found “complicated” by Avril Lavigne. We had a great time.

Sarah left Adra early the next day for the States….thus making me the only American in our circle of people until mid January. More and more these days Spanish children are getting presents from Santa Clause…but tradition for them is to receive their presents from the 3 wise men. January 6th here is “Dia de los Reyes,” which means day of the kings or Kings’ day. Many of my students got a couple of presents from Santa on Christmas morning and got the rest of their presents on Reyes. Because this holiday is on the 6th, I didn’t have to go back to school until the 11th of January! That makes it 3 weeks of payed vacation! It was incredible.

Monday, the 21st of December, was a day long Christmas party. Not one book was opened the entire school day. Boom-boxes blasted pop music and reggaeton. Everyone brought a ton of food and most classes did a a secret santa gift exchange. There was lots of laughter, singing, and dancing. It was fun to be able to spend a relaxing time with my kids and bond with them outside of class time. I taught some of my 6th grade girls some bachata steps. We made jokes in Spanish and ate too much. It was a fun day. Tuesday was our Christmas program for the entire school…preschool through 6th grade. They were all precious and adorable, but it was one of the longest programs I have ever seen.

Tuesday night I left with Amor’s family and we went to Motril. I spent almost a week with them. We had a good time. It rained A LOT. We hardly went out. We spent most of the days indoors playing with the kids, watching movies, and eating well. On Christmas Eve we went to Amor’s niece’s apartment where her entire extended family had gathered for dinner. On Christmas it poured all day long. The kids didn’t open any presents…it was another normal day for them. Almost all Spanish Christmas traditions take place on Christmas Eve. Christmas isn’t as special of a day. The 25th was a little hard for me, but we did our best to stay busy. Amor and Manolo (her husband) took us out for Chinese that afternoon. I was very grateful for their generosity and to have had a family to spend Christmas with. On Monday I returned to Adra. I was ready to be back in my apartment and in my own bed. That pretty much sums up the month. Now for January…..

More Source:

Once Upon A December Lyrics [[English!!]] - YouTube
Anastasia Once Upon a December - YouTube
DISNEY - ONCE UPON A DECEMBER LYRICS
Once Upon A December Lyrics - Deana Carter

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Submited at Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 3:00 pm on Europe by jessica
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