Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Christmas´s coming

Merry Xmas bloggers.

Yes, it´s only days before christmas. For most is a horrible season in wich we reeoncounter with old relatives and/or friends we didn´t really want to see. We eat and drink, and then we eat and drink, and on and on, ....

There´s some differences between spanish christmas and the anglosaxon. We spaniards are of fiesta type, so it´s easy to imagine we have a three weeks christmas. We both celebrate christmas eve and new years eve, but we also have "three orient kings" eve. For us those three weeks, from the 24th ´till the 6th of Jan. are christmas. If you don´t know about the three orient kings those are wich brought little Jesus presents following the christmas star to christ´s birthplace. So our children receive presents on the 6th directly from the three kings. We called them "Los tres reyes magos" and are Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar. They´re supposed to come from far away reigns and if my memory doesn´t fail one of them is jew, the other indian and the last african. They travel using camels and brings gifts and presents. As well as Santa they come at night, but instead going down a chimney they just open a window, wich is far easier and cleaner. I´m just worried about how easy is to open my window from the outside, hopeful the kings doesn´t teach thieves.

On the past few years Spain became a bit anglosaxon in some matters. I mean we copied Americans mostly and their customs. We exchanged our "Belen" (a representation of christs birthplace using small figures) and replaced it with a christmas tree. And also we put Santa Claus in the three kings place. I believe it´s not fair, although is an opportunity to receive two christmas presents instead of one, as most people just celebrate both. There´s something I don´t like about Santa and it´s the fact he comes from Coca-Cola, the jolly red guy.

As I got tired and angry with public transportation I decided to buy a car, and so I did last friday. I talked to a cousin of mine who lives here and also works selling cars and he showed me a good and cheap one, so the very same day I said yes.

This week I´m going to pick it up, I just hope they won´t be too spaniards and let me enjoy my new car as soon as possible. I´ll post a picture of it if you want. That gives me an opportunity to start new stories, this time about traffic jams. I´m sure I´ll have some.

Merry xmas to all of you and happy new year, hope next will be as good as this one for me.

Manoel.

PS: Colin, I hope I won´t find you on the road with my car, ;-)

1 comment:

Colin Davies said...

And I hope you drive carefully with my daughter in the car!

If we do meet, one of us will be going the wrong way down the autopista....