Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas Eve!

My first Christmas spent anywhere other than my parents' home in PA...it's a strange feeling, of not being there to do all the usual traditions. Since it's Christmas Eve, I should be helping my dad make the kipfel (the favorite Stremme cookie) in the kitchen, and finishing wrapping up my gifts. To help sort of follow this tradition, I'm going to go bake another kind of cookie that involves jelly and is German (I think), a linzer cookie. Plus, I do still have some wrapping to do! It's nice to know I can procrastinate in any country :)

One of things I'm most sad about missing is a Christmas Eve church service. The church I'm attending doesn't have one, nor do any of the other churches that we've found. Maybe some of the cathedrals have mass? Anyway, I'll sing Silent Night on my own if I have to!
Christmas is most definitely celebrated here, but the bigger holiday happens on Jan. 6th, el dia de los Reyes Magos (or something to that effect). King's Day. I've been told on the 5th in the evening, there is a parade where the kids dress up in costumes and throw candy into the crowds...I don't know, I'll blog more when it gets closer and I can see for myself!

One thing I have enjoyed is seeing a few different nativities around Alhaurín and in Málaga. There's one outdoors, in front of the main cathedral in town. It has full size figures, and since the floor is filled with hay all the homeless kitties around town have taken up residence beside the baby Jesus. It's really cute, actually! I got a picture of them...
You can see the two curled up together in front of Mary. There were more along the sides of the creche, probably 5 or 6 in all. This was the only life size belén (nativity) I saw.

The others were all in miniature, but were entire villages...the stable was just one part of it! We went to one that was inside a...not a church, I'm not sure what to call it. A place where they store the floats and saints for Santa Semana (Holy week, the week before Easter when they have tons of parades with their favorite saints/icons) Anyway, inside this building they had a little village set up, but when we looked closely we saw that there were little scenes from Jesus' life in different parts. One of him as a boy, while Joseph was working as a carpenter, one of Mary while she was riding on the camel, pregnant, with Joseph leading...it was neat, actually. You could always pick the 3 of them our because their figurines had the gold circle/halo around their heads. I didn't get any pictures, because I wasn't sure if it was allowed, but it was fun to look at. And the nice church ladies inside were playing tambourines and singing. Not so much in a performance way, more like they decided to stand in a little circle and sing together, And they offered us drinks. Like, shots of the anise flavored liquor...I don't know what it's called. But these Spanish ladies knew how to party!
The last belén I saw was yesterday, at the main cathedral in Málaga. It was...confusing? It was in miniature, like the other one, but the scene was more like 18th century. The figurines were dressed more 17th or 18th century, I'm not really sure. One guy had a white wig like he should have been in parliament in the 1700s...then we did see the creche at the end of the scene, but it wasn't really a stable. There were animals, and a decorative fountain in the wall behind them..umm..okay. An interpretation of Bethlehem perhaps? lol...it was interesting!

Well, the cookies won't make themselves so I better get to work. I hope to blog tomorrow at some point, but if not, then please pray for me as I prepare for my trip to Fez, Morocco! I leave on Sunday the 26th, and I'll be back in Málaga on the 30th. Just a few days, but I excited to see Morocco! Who would have thought I'd ever go to Fez??
¡Feliz Navidad!

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