Xmas

Dan: I’m starting to think that maybe we should celebrate Christmas in the summer, too. It’s nice to have some days off when the weather is nice. Thanks to us, they still have to listen to songs about winter and snow, but there are new possibilities of outdoor celebration.

We grilled chorizos, hot dogs, steak, chicken and ate at around 11:00. I was just refilling my plate when someone asked if it was getting close to midnight. Someone disappeared from the room. Soon, we heard the ringing of a bell. (gasp) “Is that el viejito pascuaro? (Old holiday guy) A couple of the grown ups took the girls Rayan, 4, Fernanda, 2, to walk around the block to look for the old fella. While they were walking around, there was frantic rushing to fill the area under the tree with wrapped gifts. We the bell a few times. I threw out a few Ho Ho Hos for good measure. They returned with wide eyes, seeing the bounty before them. We took turns opening stuff. Santa even brought me a book and a hat! Soon everyone was saying that we should probably go to bed early (it was about 2 am) because of the next day’s Christmas picnic plan.

We (9 in a jeep) drove from one campground to another until we found one that wasn’t full, at the confluence of the Correntoso and Simpson rivers. We made a huge fire to cook the lamb (an entire lamb was delivered to the house two days beforehand). Meanwhile, we kept on eating and eating. Some Xmas behaviour is international. It was a windy day but cloudless. The cold river beckoned. We played with the girls in the Simpson river for awhile. What? Am I really swimming outdoors on Dec 25? We ate more, drank mate, beer and something called borgoña, a mix of red wine, sugar and strawberries. Sergio found the other river so he and I, Cata, 25, Valentina, 11, went to check it out. It turns out that this river came directly from those glaciers above us and was quite refreshing. It only took a couple of minutes for that experiment to end.

Food: Pan de Pascuas. Christmas bread. Kind of a fruitcake I guess. Luckily no one in this family likes those candied fruits, so it had mostly nuts and spices. They tell me it is an English cake with German flavours, and it did taste something like a leibkucken -- so much so that this morning I cracked out my winterzeit tea reserves to share and polish off pan de pascuas.