Christmas Eve or Nochebuena

This year we were once again at Jose's for Christmas. It's a fairly typical Christmas Eve dinner, but it kills me!

Here's how it goes...
9 o'clock and we're watching the King's speech. Actually, the men were in the bar downstairs drinking and the women were in the kitchen cooking. Jose turned on the speech because we only saw 5 minutes last year and it seems to me that one should watch the king's address to the nation. This year we barely made it to 5 minutes. The king seems semi-literate, it's obvious he's reading the script and he just has no feeling in his voice.

About 10 o'clock people start coming in and about 10.30 we sit down to eat. Lots of shrimp with heads and other various sea animals, complete with heads. Fish or chicken to choose.

Finished at about 11.30, after two courses, fruit, cake and coffe and champagne for 19 people. Argument breaks out over whether to watch the Raphael Christmas special (that we watched the whole way through last year) or a Lost marathon (particularly bloody show, but I've never seen it, so I don't know if it's always like that or not). Certain family members break out in Christmas carols, beating on plates, clanking bottles and even going crazy with castanets. I really wanted to call the police myself!!!

I get in a bad mood at 1 o'clock in the morning because I'm very sleepy (normally in bed by 11!) and all we're doing is sitting there breathing second hand smoke, watching bits and pieces of Raphael (still) and listing to the men argue about cards.

1.30, Jose agrees to take me home. We're the first to leave. We're in bed by 2, but I don't know what time we went to sleep because everyone else was playing cards and singing Christmas carols in the building, too. Didn't hear Jose's parents come in, but they said it was at about 4.30.

Christmas Baskets

A small post before we leave to go to the in-laws for Christmas!

A wonderful Spanish tradition: Christmas baskets from the bosses! When I was in Madrid, I had horrible, cheap bosses who took advantage of my naivety of the Christmas basket tradtition and gave us a plant, a candle and a cheap bottle of wine.

However, after I moved to Toledo I hit the boss-Christmas-basket jackpot! Here is what Jose and I received in our baskets:

Jose: an assortment of products from Castilla-La Mancha. A bottle of wine, chunks of cheese in olive oil (which looks very, very disgusting), a chorizo, salami and cured pork loin. All in all, very yummy!

ME: A bottle of Duero wine, a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Baileys, a HUGE box of marzipan, various boxes of chocolates, Pringles (don't ask me why), and a 3 kilo cheese (that's over 6 pounds, people!). I think it's sheep cheese, however, so that's a pity, because I can barely stand the stuff.

Great Christmas baskets! I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

A Taste of Home

Christmas just isn't Christmas without cookies! Keeping up this tradition, so not Spanish, has meant shipping lots of things from the US. Namely, cookie cut-outs, which many find very amusing, and molasses, to make gingerbread. The strange thing about the molasses is that I've had a lot of people tell me that they recognize it, but none seem to know where in the world I could buy it!

So, here I've been, over the last week and a half, with cookie dough in the oven. The sugar cookies aren't so bad, but the gingerbread is enough to make one lose their religion! First, the sticky mess of measuring it all out (I use a recipe with honey and molasses, to stretch my supply of the imported goods), then the mixing by hand, which Jose helps me with, then the rolling and the cutting and the scraping it up off the counter and the tons and tons of flour I have everywhere! So, I mix it and then freeze it. When the mixing experience is far enough away and I'm feeling especially stable, I roll it out and cut it, one cookie at a time. I only have one proper cookie sheet, so we alter with a pizza pan. It takes a long time.

AND, to top it all off, last year when we took the cookies to Jose's parents...the looked at them like I'd brought fried caterpillars, shrugged and said, "I guess they'd be all right to eat for breakfast."

Going to the Doctor in Spain

In the US you hear a lot of negative things about socialized health care, portraying it as the worst possible thing you could do for sick people! I'm not saying it's perfect, but here is a truthful account of my latest visit to the doctor.

After some weeks of leg pain, Jose convinced me to go to the doctor. So, I went online on Tuesday night (about 10.30 pm) and signed into the website of the health system of Castilla la Mancha. I scrolled down and selected the day and time that I wanted (there weren't any appointments left for Wednesday, but I got one for Thursday at 10.45).

Yesterday I went. I arrived at about 10.40. Arriving is my least favorite part because you have to have a conference with all the old women waiting for the same doctor. The doctor's office is one of many along a wing of the building. Outside your doctor's door there is a list with all the people who have appointments with that doctor that day. For each 15 minute block, 5 people are scheduled. So, the arrival conference goes something like this. First, you look at the list and ask the old women which appointment time is in with the doctor now. Normally it's the previous time (in this case, 10.30). Then, you ask if the person who is before you is there waiting. If so, you claim the spot after this person. Then, you have to be on the look out for the person after you so that you can help them claim their spot.

I waited about twenty minutes for my turn to come. A twenty minute wait isn't bad for any doctor anywhere in the world, I'm sure. I went in and told the doctor about my weird leg pain. Now, my doctor is really nice, but he talks to me like I'm deaf or really stupid. Kind of like..."And...it...hurts...here...?" Either he's had bad experiences with immigrants before or I'm the first one he's met. It's annoying and endearing at the same time.

But back to the visit. The doctor asks lots of questions about the pain, then says he'd like to send me for an x-ray. But, because you can't leave the doctor's empty handed he prints me out a prescription for Ibuprofen. Yep. I was confused at first, because you can buy it over the counter here at the pharmacy, but I remembered just in time I was in Spain and kept my mouth shut.

Because of the prescription (which is subsidized by the government), I got a box of 800 mg Ibuprofen for 80 cents! Plus, three other prescription medications for less than 2 euros each! It's so cheap!

Plus, even though I was warned that it might take a month to get my x-ray appointment, in the end I went this morning. Another twenty minute wait, and I was done.

And it was all for free. Except the 80 cent Ibuprofen.

The Caja Rural Nativity Scene is Now Open

Last year, on the last day of class before the Christmas holidays, I went out for a drink with my adult FCE class. I had to do something the next day, so I only had a glass of wine and left to go to the corner to meet Jose, who was coming from his own holiday Christmas party. As I was walking down the street, I looked to my left and saw a llama. And some sheep. And some swans, ducks, and exotic birds. Camels, donkeys and cows. And I thought to myself...did someone put something in my drink???


But no, it was only the Caja Rural Nativity Scene which includes many animals who get to live in the front yard of the bank for a month and have all of Toledo gawk at them.

Last weekend it opened this year, so of course, Jose and I went.

The Christmas Lottery

It's December and that means: The Christmas Lottery!

The lottery tickets are on sale from July up until the day of the lottery, December 22. The tickets are 20 euros each and each number is printed ten times. On the morning of the lottery, the children from St. Ildefonso's school, in their uniforms, come and sing both the ticket numbers and the prizes in euros. (I came to Spain after the change to the euro, but I have heard from many sources that it sounded much better in pesetas.) I don't know the actual numbers, but from the national frenzy surrounding the lottery, I'm guessing the government makes a tidy sum.


The pictures are from last year. Jose's parents asked us to buy them a ticket when we were in Madrid for the weekend. And, of course, you can't buy just anywhere. The pictures are outside the famous Dona Manolita's lottery shop, on Gran Via, where many a winning lottery tickets have been sold. Can you find Jose in the line? AND, may I add, that this was a weekend in November!



This is one of the strongest traditions for Christmas. But I hate it! Generally, Christmas traditions don't invoke strong negative feelings, but this one has just gotten out of hand!

It all started well enough, with a holiday sense of generosity. Everyone would buy a ticket and then "give" part of their number to members of their family or their friends, thus increasing everyone's numbers and adding to the excitement on the day of the lottery because of your increased chance of winning. Jose told me that each family used to share 100 pesetas (about 60 cents) with each couple in the family. 6o cents would go far! Then, Spain changed to the euro. 100 pesetas changed to one euro (not only for the Christmas Lottery, but that's a different post), but still, even exchanging one euro pieces of your lottery tickets left you with plenty. Then, someone somewhere, had the great idea to be super generous and give 5 euros. And, of course, if someone gives you 5 euros of their ticket, you have to give them 5 euros of your ticket. You can see how quickly you start buying 5 or 6 or 10 tickets, and remember, they're 20 euros each!

The last I heard, Jose's family is now giving 10 euros, half the ticket!, to other family members. An easy estimate of lottery spendings is 200 or 3oo euros per family. Only on lottery tickets. That is insane!

As we've been getting older, and especially after we moved in together, we've experienced a bit of pressure to start participating in the Christmas lottery. Some people offer to share their tickets with us or ask if we've got a number. Each time we explain that we don't play the lottery, as a rule, and that includes the Christmas lottery. And each time we get very strange looks and explanations about how the Christmas lottery isn't about gambling, it's about the tradition and holiday spirit. But that's some expensive holiday spirit that is way too easy to get out of control!