25 December 2008

Feliz Navidad












We had a very joyful Christmas with all of our family.  Traditionally, in Mexico Christmas Eve is celebrated much more than Christmas Day.  Typically we would go to a relative's home and have a lot of food late at night - say around 9/10pm.  Once the eating was done, we'd head to Midnight Mass.  But, we live in the States and we have young children so here we went to the 5 o'clock service at our church, Christ the King Presbyterian and then headed for some grub at our friends, the Batchelders' home.  We enjoyed singing carols and listening to the 7 lessons being read at church.  After socializing with fellow church goers, we got home and set out oreos and milk for Santa Claus along with corn and veggies for the deer.  

Christmas Day we woke up to hear Isabella all excited that the deer had eaten their food and two of Santa's cookies.  Santa had only eaten one.  Mee-maw & Grandpa, Uncle David, and Susan came over for breakfast and opening presents.  Tia Sofia and Nani (formerly known as Abuelita Sonia) spent the night with us.  Isa had really been looking forward to helping Diego open his presents.  That is all she would talk about therefore she could barely wait for Diego to wake up from his early morning nap.  

Grandpa Floyd cooked us a delicious breakfast of whole wheat pancakes which we all enjoyed very much.  Diego has become very good at eating with his fingers and rarely eats the pureed food anymore, so he particularly enjoyed the pancakes and couldn't get enough of them.  Isabella was mostly interested in the syrup (pronounced sarahp).  

After reading many stories from her new books to Isabella, and Grandpa drawing many a princess for her, we started getting preparations going for Christmas dinner.  Abuelito tito Juan made his grand entrance in time to make his delicious cream of carrot soup.  We ate cheese & crackers, olives with some tequila shots while waiting for the pork loin to cook.  We then sat down for a delicious meal of carrot soup, apple rosemary pork loin, french green beans, garlic cream cheese mashed potatoes, salad, and eventually much later in the evening some coffee and an array of desserts including Jack Daniels pecan pie, almond crusted cheesecake and grasshopper pie.  

It was a wonderfully relaxing day filled with family.  By the late evening we played cards, whilst watching cheesy movies and having good conversation.  The men solved the world as Mee-maw likes to say.

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