Merry Christmas from Spain

Christmas decorations

As is our tradition, we pulled out the Christmas decorations the Sunday after Thanksgiving. This year the kids were so excited to get to help. I (Keri) admit it is a bit hard for me to let them help, but I did my best to let the control-freak in me not get in the way. They had a blast!

This is our Jesse Tree. It is made of green felt and is about 6 feet tall. Last year, this was our only tree. Each ornament correlates to an Old Testament story that points toward the coming of Christ. We have a book that goes with it and read one story every night at the dinner table.

I am also a big fan of St. Nicholas Day. We celebrated St. Nicholas day this past Sunday (Dec 6) by having the kids put their shoes outside their bedroom doors when they went to bed and they awoke to candy and treats inside. More pictures to come on that. But anyway - here is our St. Nicholas with the gold pinecones and leaves Grandma made while she was here.

Here is the table inside our front door. The little penguins sing a song and wag their jingle-bell tails at the push of a button. Mathis loves to make them sing and has been heard singing to himself "Rockin' around the Christmas tree at the penguin party hop..." It's so funny.

And this year we were given an artificial tree. I wasn't going to put it up because we didn't have any of our personal ornaments here and I didn't really want a meaningless tree. However, while my mom was here visiting last week, she insisted that I could have the kids make ornaments and still make it meaningful. And she was so right! She worked with them all week to make jar-lid ornaments with the nativity characters, she taught Rachel to sew and made stuffed felt stars, balls and miniature christmas trees. I made some homemade cinnamon shape ornaments and a paper chain. And I really do love it. (I'm not sure why it looks crooked in the picture.)

So thanks, mom!

You just never know...

For several months now we have been battling a problem with one of the walls in our bedroom/closet. We think the shower is leaking and because our walls are concrete, the water is wicking up into the concrete and because our closet stays dark, there has been mold and mildew growing. We were finally able to contact the landlord about it today, through a friend whose Spanish is much better than ours, and said they would be sending out a repairman soon.

So in the discussion with the landlord, he said to our friend how he doesn't get over to his parents' (who live behind us) house very often but that they are always commenting on how nice it is that we leave our curtains open all day and live an open life and that they have noted that our home seems full of life and love. He said it in a very complimentary way. Apparently, most Spaniards, if they know someone is close enough to see in their home would keep things closed and maintain a high level of privacy. It hadn't occurred to us to keep our shades drawn for that reason.

It just struck me as such a nice yet strange compliment and is a good reminder that we never really know who is watching us or what kind of witness our day-to-day activities and the way we run our home is to those around us. It was a nice thing for him to say.