HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS PART TWO: THREE KINGS DAY

I am going to take this opportunity in this post to have a teaching moment for those who are not familiar with the Spanish culture. It used to be that Christmas in Spain was just a time to celebrate Christ´s birth and be together as a family. There was no Santa Claus, no present giving, etc. Recently, however, Santa Claus has become very popular and now even Santa Claus flies his sleigh to Spain to deliver gifts. I guess you could blame this change on globalization.

Instead of Santa Claus, up until recently the tradition here was that the Three Wise Men, or Three Kings as they say here, brought the gifts to the children just as they brought the gifts to Jesus. This celebration takes place on the 6th of January. The three wise men´s names are:

Melchor: A white old wise man with a white beard. His gift for Jesus was gold, representing his royal birth.

Gaspar: A brown young wise man. His gift was incense, reprenting the divine nature of Jesus.

Baltasar: A black wise man. His gift was myrrh, representing the suffering and future death of Jesus. (Until recently a Spaniard would paint his face black, but with the influx of imigrants from Africa you occasionally see a genuine black man but it is still common to see a white man painted black. It is not considered politically incorrect here.)

Just as Santa Claus brings toys and gifts to all the good little boys and girls, the Three Kings every year bring toys and gifts to all the good boys and girls reminding them how we should always carry the boy Jesus in our hearts.

Since the Three Kings is a Spanish Tradition and neither Leo or I are from Spain, and Charlie was still too little to know the difference, we did not celebrate the holiday with gifts until this year. So you could say that Charlie was very lucky this year: gifts for Christmas and more gifts a few weeks later. (Don´t worry we did not spoil him too much. We just halved the loot).

To start the celebration of Three Kings Day, on the night of the 5th, every city has a parade in which at the end of the parade the Three Kings arrive. Through out the parade the participants throw candy and toys to the people.

Another interesting tradition that has comeabout here is that since the majority of the people live in apartment buildings, as part of their holiday decor, they hang little figurines of Santa Claus and the Three Kinds climbing up a ladder or a rope from their windows. Since there are no chimneys, the people had to get creative.


Clark and Me at the parade. Clark loved looking at all the people and lights.

Charlie and Leo right up front trying to get more candy and toys.

How the gifts arrive.

The arrival of one of the Kings.

The arrival of another King.

Leo and the kids at the end of the parade with Leo´s mom Yolanda.

Early morning gift opening. Ben 10 was big hit for Charlie this year.

Every year the church throws a Three King Day celebration in which the Wise Men bring gifts for all the kids and throw out candy to the people and then we eat a traditional dessert served on this day: roscon.

Clark was a little scared this year.

A picture with all the kids.

HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS 2009/2010

I know it is now February but like they say, it is better late than never. I didn´t want time to go by with out documenting our holiday happenings. Overall, the holidays were very good and low key. Charlie had his Christmas program in which he sang about animals including a shark in a blue lake with the Three Wise Men riding on Seahorses. Interesting? Once again we almost had a tradegy with his costume for the program. This year he did not have to dress up as a shephard but we were supposed to buy him a light blue shirt and sew garland around the neck and wrists. I understood the shirt part but I missed the garland part because I thought they were going to give him the garland at the performance. Good thing I have a good friend who´s son is in Charlie´s class who warned me a few days before so will were able to avoid another breakdown on my part. (I have been living in Spain now six years, but I still have some problems sometimes. But it made me feel better when Leo after reading the note said he would have made the same mistake).

Once again Leo and I were in charge of the Christmas dinner for our ward at Church. We decided to focus on service this year, so Leo organized some service projects in which members went to a soup kitchen to serve the food and clean. Even Charlie participated and really enjoyed the experience. On the day of the dinner at the church we collected clothes and toys to take to a charity and then after dinner we had a service auction for the members to exchange services. It was a big success.
Christmas Eve dinner with Leo´s family was at our house and just like other years we didn´t start eating until about 11 at night. In Ecuador the tradition is to eat at midnight so at least I got them to move it up an hour. We had a gift exchange with the whole family and laughed lots. It was very nice.
Christmas day was very nice too. Charlie stayed up so late on Christmas Eve that we actually had to wake him up at 11:30 am. (That is ok because it gave Santa some time to do some last minute wrapping.) Charlie´s list for Christmas was very long this year but in the end Santa brought him a costume of Iron Man, some Star Wars swords and Ben Ten action figurines. Santa brought Clark a lion to ride on but it is the small sword of Charlie´s that Clark likes most. When Charlie and Leo play fight, Clark gets right into the action and starts to fight as well, with noises and all. Overall it was a very good Christmas. We are so grateful we have the opportunity to celebrate Christ´s birth and spend time with family and friends.


Charlie with his costume for his school Christmas program.

Charlie crossing the street with his classmates to go to the auditorium for the performance.

Waving to the parents after the performance.

Clark, on Christmas Eve with his Christmas PJs.

Charlie and Clarks favorite toy from Christmas.

Clark´s Lion which is still sitting in the corner.

The boys in action.

Charlie showing off his new action gear.

The boys in action once again. It is non stop fun.

Charlie posing with one of the Three Kings (I think Baltasar) in order to drop off his wish list for Three Kings Day.

LETTER TO SANTA

Although we didn´t get Christmas cards out this year, Charlie did send out his letter to Santa, pictures included. The card read: Dear Santa, I love you. I have been a very good boy. Please bring me these gifts. Charlie.

Charlie really enjoyed cutting out the pictures of the toys he wanted and also the toys that he thought Clark and his cousin Javi would like and then he pasted them on the back of the letter. Leo helped Charlie compose the letter and wrote it out and then Charlie copied the words by himself. This year Santa had a change of address and instead of the north pole, we sent the letter to Colton, Oregon, but don´t tell Charlie that. Charlie really enjoyed Christmas this year and was so amazed by the whole Santa Claus story. Everyday he would want me to show him on a map or globe where the North Pole was and everyday he asked if we could go there.

Charlie proud of his letter to Santa

Charlie excited to mail his letter. We went to a store near our house to drop off the letter in the mailbox AKA the lion´s mouth. Even Clark was amazed by the experience as you can tell in the picture.

Happy 1st Birthday Clark

Clark turned one in early December. It is hard to believe that a year has gone by so fast. It doesn´t seem so long ago that my parents and sister Ashlee were here for the holidays and Clark was a newborn. We feel so blessed to have Clark in our family. He has brought so much joy and laughter into our home especially when he does his trademark flutter of the eyes. He is starting early with the flirting. Although he is sometimes a bit Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde, especially at night, we wouldn´t have him any other way, although sleeping 8 hours straight would be nice. On his birthday, Clark would only take a few steps on his own but now he is a walking machine. He also says a few words including the usual, mama and papa but he also says yaya (it is like saying granny in Spanish) and hola and ma (which could mean more or mas in Spanish). We celebrated Clark´s birthday just with family at home. Clark enjoyed eating his cake and his brother Charlie enjoyed helping open his presents.

WHILE MOMMY IS AWAY

What happens when mommy is away, daddy is in charge but very tired and the baby is looking for trouble?

The answer is below.

11 MONTHS AND COUNTING

It is hard to believe but Clark turned 11 months old earlier this month. He gets cuter and cuter by the day but more mischevious as well. He is crawling on his bum (Is it still called crawling if he gets around scooting on his bottom?). He is also pulling himself up on the furniture and walking around. Clark loves to play peekaboo and catch the ball but his favorite activity is helping mommy clean out the cupboards and drawers.

HOORAY FOR HALLOWEEN

Once again halloween was crazy this year. Not because I was busy making home made costumes and decorations but because like the past 4 years I was in charge of the church ward halloween carnival. Although this year was a lot less stressful because we didn´t invite the other two wards which meant less people and less chaos, nonetheless I had my challenges. As I am not the best at delegating, I was in charge of everthing: food, decorations, games, prizes and contests. Luckily Leo was a big help. Making this year even a little more challenging was the fact that we couldn´t set up the room the day before because there was a baptism only 3 hours before the activity and in a small church like ours, the sacrament room is the same as the cultural hall, so we had to wait to decorate until after the baptism. However, to make things easier, Leo and I and the kids went to the church Saturday morning and spent 3 hours blowing up balloons and getting all the games and candy ready. Then we went home and I made cupcakes for the cake walk. Every year I tell Leo that I am not going to be in charge of next year´s activity and every year I end up doing it because I know the kids really look forward to it and it is the activity when more people who are not members of the church come. Watching the families have such a great time makes it all worth it.

Even the Bishop helped run the games.

Charlie aka Spiderman and his good friend Dani.

Clark slept through most of the chaos.