Christmas is very quiet here. Father Christmas or Papa Noel is regarded with suspicion as being a bit of a pretender. Everyone knows that the three kings bring the presents on the 6th Jan – not some old (American) geezer dressed in red. It is interesting how some of the traditions to overlap however. Children who are naughty get given coal instead of presents. Families also leave out some nibbles for the three kings’ camels.
The big meal is on Christmas Eve or Buena Noche (good night). The traditional meal is fish, followed by more fist with fish to finish. There is a midnight mass which is referred to as the rooster mass. Everyone – young and old (but not British) then ends up at Disco Tony’s.
This weekend is the really big shopping weekend and we found it strange that we got flyers through the door this week about buying presents. We both commented that they’d left it a bit late, until we realized that people would now be getting ready for gift buying.
I think it is safe to say that we would have been the only ones having a traditional christmas on the 25th. Well, if we had a traditional Christmas that is…
With no real kitchen our festive feast has been based around bread, cheese and eaten off of plastic plates. We did have pasta last night however.
Our plan had been to make glass beads on Christmas Day. However, yet again we were foiled. This time we had the wrong regulator. One day perhaps we’ll get there. It was a shame as we’d really enjoyed making jewelry last Christmas and we’d been looking forward to doing something similar this year. Unfortunately by the time we’d got all the glass making stuff out, played around with the regulator, consulted the Internet to find out what was wrong with the regulator and sulked, there wasn’t much time left to have any fun activity so instead we trimmed the dogs. Quite a feat and we managed to blunt a newly sharpened blade in record time. Mainly because the dogs are caked in cement dust and debris which was tough going. Yesterday Ian was working on his website and I was spinning some camel fibre.
So, back to normal now. The company that I did the writing for in November have commissioned another 8 articles which I will do today and then I have some catching up of other stuff to do. I’ve asked for extra articles from one company that I write for as we’re trying to gather together the necessary readies for finishing the house.
Talking of which, our builder has recommended that we have a new drainage pipe put under the house. At the moment there is a brick drain which leaks water and this is part of the damp problem. So he is suggesting that they take up the middle three rows of the tiles in the hallway and put in a pipe. I don’t think that this will be too big a job – just messy. However it makes sense to get it done now.