White xmas... sort of

Okay, it was warm and sunny T-shirt weather, but snow WAS on the peaks near our village. Doesn’t that count a little? We have only had about three days of rain here since we arrived (and one of those was at night) and clear brilliant blue skies seems to be the normal pattern (occasionally with a rare cottony puff
of a cloud for a little decoration), but it did rain a little one morning as we set off to do our food shopping for Christmas on Saturday the 23rd, before it turned back to sun that afternoon. That dusted the top peaks quite nicely and even tho it has been warm and sunny since then, we managed to keep a little. Ah yes,
this is my kind of white Christmas, with the sparkling sea, white houses and palm trees as a foreground.

We are still thinking about heading to the skiing that is only about an hour away, but will probably wait until after school is in if at all. Somehow it is not calling us much this year and we are quite satisfied not moving at the moment, our wanderlust energy seems to be in a dormant state. Village life seems to be
working some kind of magic on us and we are enjoying just basking in the simple pleasures, sunshine and sweetness. True slow travel at its best.

After we opened gifts and played with them some, we decided to head out for a little walk around the village to enjoy the sunshine and let Mozart run off some of that steam at a couple playgrounds. We were surprised to see a few restaurants open and even a few shops, altho it was very quiet and most things were closed. We ran into some friends as we always do on village walks and Mozart got to wear her new clothes that just arrived from Auntie BJ and Uncle Steve and filled her silver Bratz purse (that she got from Mom and Dad ) with a few favorite trinkets from Santa.

We meant it to be a short outing, but we were having such fun exploring new nooks and crannies that we ended up being out for two hours. We even ended up stopping to sit in the sun and have a little drink and snack at an outdoor cafe. Life is good and we are still nurtured by the views and sights in this small village and surrounding mountains and nearby sea. We are not tourists, but still there is something always new and inviting to take in. It will always be a part of us now and we already know it will be fun to return to it next winter. I still can not believer my luck in finding such a perfect spot over the internet.

We got home just in time to finish off the dinner together, eat and make and receive our skype webcam calls home. DaVinci talked me out of making the pumpkin pie even tho it is one of his favorites. The oven here is just too old fashioned and scary for us, so I guess I will save the ingredients until next year or sometime when we have a decent oven. We had the same meal that we had on Thanksgiving and it was yummy, tho not as good as my moms. The stuffing turned out better this time and I made the gravy from scratch and it turned out delicious.

After dinner Mozart was so happy to be reading the comics from home which Grandma had put in the box with her gifts for packing stuffing. I haven’t asked yet if it was on purpose or not, but Mozart was almost as excited about them as she was about the gifts and carefully unraveled the crumpled balls of them to read over and over. Little things from home are exciting.

We actually got our first skype call in the morning from my brother and his family in Texas, which surprised us because that does not usually happen due to the time difference. They were just heading to bed after their midnight mass, so called us at 3 AM their time. We are spreading the skype word as they are new users (and it will come in handy with my sister in laws family in Europe as she is from the Netherlands) as well
as allowing Uncle Steve in Northern California to hook up with his fast growing grand babies in Southern California. We have grown quite fond of webcam communications and that cute little skype call sound, altho sometimes it catches one not quite camera ready and in PJ’s and uncombed hair!

It was fun talking to and seeing family and being part of each others Christmas thru the webcam. It does not always work perfectly, but makes being away from family much more bearable. Mozart sang her carols in Spanish at least 3 times. We were all tuckered out after that since we got up so early and had gone to bed late, so we just headed to bed  fully satisfied by our first Christmas Day in Spain.