Yorch Place

Christmas dinner was held on the 24th of december "Noche Buena" (Holy Night) as I mentioned before we had codfish, pork leg, pasta, salad (apple and greek), chocolate cake (we hate fruit cake) and cider (for the toast, kids toast too)

The next day we ate the leftovers togheter in the same place as the dinner, and in the afternoon all the aunts take some leftovers to their houses, which includes my mom's, and so on the 26th I also eat leftovers but at least a new dish "Caldo rojo" which is beef meat soup with chile. And there are still leftovers in the fridge, so there is going to be a leftover week. Since I'm on vacation I'm eating with my parents everyday, time to be with the family, the rest of the year I eat with them once or maybe twice a week, so this is nice since my mom's cooking abilities are greater than those in the cafeteria at work.

By the way, I LOVE leftovers, they taste better with time, belive me, but avoid them when they change colour.

Today is the day before Christmas, or as we call it "Noche Buena" that is also the real name of the poinsettias, since this flowers are mexicans, and a US ambassador in Mexico decided to export it and named it after him (egomaniac).

The city's main christmas tree, every year it is different and in a different plaza of the city, this year is located in the "Plaza de la constitución" next to the conservatory and the luxurious "Gran Hotel"



On the first day of the month (december) hte governor and the city mayor turn on the tree, while also crowning the queen of christmas (we have a beauty queen of christmas)

The goverment plaza (governor mansion, congress, justice palace and ministers) with poinsettias.



In all the streets you can see some messages of "Feliz Navidad" and other figures, hanging.


(That is the conservatory)

In the other plaza "Jardín Zenea" there is a nativity scene, a spanish-mexican tradition, notice that baby Jesus is not in the craddle, because he is not born yet. And in the scene there are images of the creation, the hell, a posada, and other stuff not only the nativity.



And here it is my Christmas tree, well my family's christmas tree, with all the gifts, we give the gifts tonight to each other, since Santa isn't real but the magic kings (three wise kings) are real, in Mexico each family memeber gives a gift to other, and in my family (nuclear family) we give each other a gift, so I received at least three gifts and give other three.



I'm on vacation, which is great, the bad thing is, I'm going to celebrate in the city of Celaya, which is like 50km from Santiago de Queretaro, but is not a nice city and the traffic jam there is incredible (there are tons of work in the street, they are installing sewer system) and the toll booth has really long lines (the season, lots of people traveling)

Last saturday it took me one and half hours to arrive there!

Mexico City this three days, December 11 to 13, will be 8,000,000 people more populated, so the 22,000,000 people (est) living there will reach the amazing number of 30,000,000... why, well the second most visited catholic church in the world is located there, is the Church for the Virgin of Guadalupe, Queen of Mexico, mother of all mexicans and lately (by John Paul II) Empress of the Americas. As Octavio Paz once said - Mexicans are Guadalupans not catholics - (something like that).

The estimate is that at least 12,000,000 people is going to visit the church, because it is the anniversary of the miracle, her birthday of the brown skinned virgin.

I find it really amazing, the amount of people there waiting for hours just to see her for merely seconds.

This date is like the official start for christmas for mexicans (as myself) we like to call it "GUADALUPE-REYES" which means from the day of the virgin to the day of the holy saint kings.

They came last night to Querétaro, they arrive on time, as usual, with presents to all the kids and people who behave well in the year.

In Mexico instead of Santa Claus, we have the Three Kings, they deliver gifts to the kids, just like they did to baby Jesus, with the pass of time and the influence of media (US media mainly) Santa Claus started to come here, but is not as popular as the Three Magic Kings, because only a few part of the kids have presents from Santa Claus too.

The three kings have many stuff involved in their tradition, the cake, which is a fruit cake (that is fresh and tasty not like the other of christmas) in which there are four doll hidden they represent baby Jesus, you can cut the cake in any part, it doesn't have an order, to increse the mistery of the location of the doll.

In the night before the kings arrive all kids write a letter, I wrote my letters several days before and put it in the tree (christmas), to deliver the letter to the kings there are several ways, one being the mexican post office, they have special Postal Box to the kings, and the more traditional and trusty, the balloon, the kings live in the stars, not some place in north pole, they are more special than that, so we tie the letter to a ballon full with helium and let it fly, the balloon always arrives to their three stars (Orion's Belt).

We have to leave food (cookies and milk) to the kings and food and water to the elephant, horse and camel they use to travel.

Under the tree you leave a shoe, your favorite or older shoe, they will leave your toys under the shoe, they arrive at my house, and deliver gifts to my mom, dad and me!, we behave really good.

In my city you can see them delivering toys al night, really you can see them!!

Remember that I mention the orphan boys that came to my workplace, well it was very fun, and I was dressed as a king!! my dream come true, I deliver tons of toys to the orphans, and also clothes, the idea is tu furfill their letters, and we did!

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I Know it's too late, is the 26th, but I was celebrating Christmas...

So Merry Christmas!!

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