Christmas Eve

So this is an attempt at repentance in writing more frequently. ;-) I thought it might be fun to let you all know what we're doing for the holidays.

Unfortunately I had to work a half-day at the clinic in the morning, so I missed out on the tamalada. For those of you who don't know our Christmas traditions so well, that's Spanish for a Tamale making party, and it's pretty common in Mexico. We've done it for the last four years or so. So while I was off giving holiday eye exams, Kristin had about five sisters over from the ward and was rapping tamales with them and with her sister Kimberly, who flew out the day before to visit for the holidays. :-)

Once I got home, we spent some time rapping presents. The night before we all went out to the dollar store and each kid got to go and buy presents for everyone with money they've been saving from chores for the past few weeks.

It was way fun to help them choose things, and then to help them count out nickels and dimes for the cashiers. And then after the tamale making, we got to take each kid aside and help them wrap their presents. Obviously no pictures were taken - don't want to give away what gifts were given ;-).

In the afternoon we went to the Methodist church that runs Eliora's preschool for their family Christmas service (we both agreed that having our Christmas service on the 21st in Sacrament meeting didn't really feel at all sufficient and that our church should totally have a fireside or devotional or something on Christmas Eve). It was a beautiful church with stained glass windows and an impressive pipe organ.

Some aspects of the service were obviously different than what we were used to, but it was still pretty. At the end the pastor called all the kids up and told them the story of Bishop Nicholas and where the tradition of Santa clause came from. 

When he asked the kids if they knew what a bishop was, Kaela and Eliora were the only ones who raised their hands, and Kaela said it was the person who is in charge of the church. Both Kristin and I let out a small sigh of relief at that moment. :-)

When we got home and after having a delicious tamale dinner, we wanted to watch a Christmas movie with the kids to wind down for Bed, but we realized that we REALLY needed to get some things from the grocery store for meals tomorrow. So it happened that while everyone else got to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I ended up having to go out to Walmart an hour before they closed. 

It was a very interesting experience. It wasn't like crazy busy like Black Friday with people rushing to get last minute gifts like I'd expected. Maybe I just didn't see that because I was mostly just in the grocery section, but I did see a lot of people like me, trying frantically to get their grocery list done before the store closed. Most of us had the same expression of desperation as we walked through aisles that looked like they'd been cleaned out by people in preparation for some natural disaster, while every five minutes they announced over the intercom that the store was closing very soon and that we should make our way to the checkstands if we want to check out before they are shut down. 

I managed to get one of the last bags of potatoes, and witnessed three other people coming and looking for them right while I was there. Eggs were fun also - I had to get a 5 dozen box because that's all that was left.

The funniest part of the experience was actually running into someone else in the ward and asking them, "what on earth are you doing here?! Are you insane too?!" After chit chatting for a bit, I was very happy to hear that the highlight of his evening had been a really awesome tamale dinner his wife had made… :-)

So all in all it's been an ok Christmas Eve. More to come later.