Christmas Part II

Christmas-The First Day of Christmas

The Christmas season for us, was not too different from years past except it seemed more simplified without buying gifts for co-workers and neighbors (which they don't normally do here), having very few Christmas parties to attend and other related activities, no lights to go enjoy, less traffic to deal with around shopping centers, no snow distractions, etc.    We did miss our time with family!!!

Christmas Eve

This was taken the night before Christmas, just before the kids began to tear apart their gingerbread houses.

 

Christmas Day 

Since we had no where to go on Christmas we took our time opening and enjoying presents, skyped Grandma Bellon and that was about it.  Above was a present for Kamree that I was really excited about giving her.  It was a wooden house kit that we purchased and spent hours assembling and painting.    She has yet to play with it and says she needs "English friends to come over and play with it" with her and then she will play with it.  Not pictured is our favorite Christmas present, a clothes dryer.  We never got used to stiff, wrinkly clothes from indoor hang drying. 

 

   

 

And what were these clowns doing you might ask?...

They were trying to hijack pictures of these sweet girls modeling some of their Christmas gifts by jumping in front of the camera. Kamree is wearing Kaiya's Christmas boots and they are both wearing their neck pillows they got for our trip the next day. 

They thought the results were so funny that everyone joined in.

 

This was our favorite! (not Kaiya's)

Three Kings Day-the 12th Day of Christmas

Three Kings Day is January 6th, but the fun starts the evening before in each Spanish town with a procession usually led by the Three Kings on floats and sometimes camels through the streets throwing out sweets to the children.  Also on the night of January 5th, the figures of the Wise Men/Three Kings are placed in the nativity scenes.  The next morning is when the kids find gifts from the Kings in their shoes or under the tree.

Eve of Three King Day

While we waited for the fun to start, we waited for Brent to get done with clerk stuff outside of church.  Each Sunday we wait nearly an hour after church while he does his thing.  Today it was finally warm enough that all but Kaiya went outside to run around.  They were being so cute together that I had to snap a picture.

Parade

We waited close to half an hour for the very slow moving parade to finally start and reach us.  We didn't know what to expect at this parade since someone had just mentioned it the day before in a short text.   We weren't sure if there would even be candy but we brought bags just in case. 



(This is just after our camera batteries died so expect less quality from here on out on Brent's phone camera)Each float threw out large amounts of candy which should have made the kids ecstatic, but it was all the same yucky hard candy and there was too much of it.  Kaiya refused to pick any up but she did catch some in her boot, Mason caught some in his pocket, the guy next to us just held out an umbrella upside down and got plenty, Brent was hit in the head and got a bruise/cut.  We all got hit too many times and thought salt water taffy would have been more appropriate. 

 

After the passing of the parade everyone follows the Three Kings route to the sports complex to receive their gifts from their assigned king.  This is Morgan and Mason close to the front in their line.  After waiting for about an hour, they lit up a star with fireworks and then the kings arrived. Ten minutes later the doors finally opened, (it was now dark)  we went inside and stood in line for another 30-45 minutes.

This is what the lines looked like once inside the sports center.  Not sure where everyone came from.  The kings asked the kids what they wanted for Three Kings day, if they have been good, handed out a gift and allowed time for pictures.  No wonder it took so long. 

Kamree with King Gaspar who gave her a really nice art kit/set. 

Morgan and Mason got some nice boy toys from King Balthazar.  Morgan returned about 90 minutes later to exchange his toy for a soccer ball set and still there were lengthy lines. 

 

After receiving the gifts we stood in another but quicker line to exit through the back door.  As we made it out the door we found ourselves again in line for extremely thick hot chocolate and Roscon ( Three Kings day cake) without cream unlike the one in this picture.  Our 5:30 Sunday dinner was eventually served after 8:00 p.m.



This is what the Three Kings left our kids.  Sadly this marked the end of Christmas.