What we did

Festive spirit in Madrid:


The days running up to Christmas are fuelled with excitement of the Christmas Lottery which in some places begins to be sold in August. This is probably the most played draw and reports this year said that each person would spend as much as €130. I personally spent €4, Paloma €35, and someone we know €1,300 in tickets and participations of a number: it’s quite a strange setup.

Saturday 22nd December:

The Big Draw: takes place from 9am until about 1pm (not sure as I don’t watch it). It consists of young children from a school working in pairs; one taking out a ball/number (and shouting it like a song!!) which is the ticket number, and the other kid takes out a corresponding ball/number which is the amount of that prize. The ‘Gordo’ is the biggest amount which is near €3million, but in total they pay our over 2billion quid!!€€€€€ Read link below:


http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/12/22/spains_el_gordo_lottery_awards_32_billion/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Latest+news


Christmas Eve:

This is the most important day in my opinion. Everyone talks about the dinner and what they are going to have and who is going to be there; family members who live away, etc. The typical dish is seafood and cured meats for starters and then lamb as the main course. We, thankfully didn’t have lamb as Paloma had made a lovely ‘Hake Pie’ which was nice and light. We finally got home at about 1am and Glen kept us awake til about 3’30am.



Christmas Day:
After the night that Glen gave us it was a pleasure for me to wake him up at 10’30am – he didn’t want to know me and kept closing his eyes until he realised it was Christmas Day and Santy had been
We went to Paloma’s father’s house to exchange our Santy gifts. Glen was the first to get his, and he got some pressies from his abuelo, his uncle, his aunt/uncle and then his other aunt. He was delighted. Then the present exchanging continued in order of age: young to old. After this, we got out respective bags and boxes and drove to Pozuelo where Paloma’s aunt and her family were waiting for us to have lunch. There were about 18 of us for lunch anda good atmosphere. Glen had the company of three other youngsters aged; (about) 7, 6, 3.5. At first they were a bit shy, but within a few minutes he was following the girl (!!) and shouting all sorts of things at her. After a lively lunch (leftovers from the night before) and a cup of tea we organised the names for the ‘kriss-kindel’ or ‘invisible friend’ as it’s known as here.
We will get together on the 6th Jan – REYES MAGOS or Magic Kings day to celebrate the giving of the gifts.

For those interested see this nice web page for some expressions:
http://www.lingolex.com/christmas.htm


The evening came to its climax when the niños began singing christmas carols with a tamborine-like instument (GLEN incl.) in the hope of getting the aguinaldo - money for playing music!! Glen was bashing a spoon against the plastic as if it were a competition!

The evening ended at about 9pm when the young lad fell asleep and the aunt began preparing supper - we couldn't!! ..eat more!