Merry Christmas To Me

I'm sitting here crossed-legged on a bed with the sounds of the city quieted by the Christmas celebrations and Spanish-dubbed television. It's a bit strange to me to realize that this is simply my life now. Despite the fact that my friends have pointed out that at least I'm doing "nothing"...it is in another country. What I realize, though, is that ordinary is ordinary no matter where you are.

What a beautiful Christmas this has been. In the Latin cultures, Christmas Eve is the more important day, and we had a delightful feast last night of lasagne, a variety of potatoes (sweet, salad, casserole), Dominican-style tamales, an amazing dish of plantains and ground beef (like a shepherd's pie), bread, and sweets. We all dressed as nicely as we could and listened to the Christmas story in Spanish before devouring the feast. Then all the gifts were brought out to the living room and left waiting for the morning.

Apparently, the children tore into the gifts while we were still sleeping. This wasn't a difficult feat since we were awake until 3 in the morning, scavenging the kitchen for more sweets and playing video games and lying in each others' arms sharing those sweet moments that only twin souls can. We spent the day with the family and talking for hours on the balcony.

I love these moments.

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