As I've said before, spending Christmas with my family was one of the things I was looking forward to most about this South American sojourn. I'm not really a big Christmas person: I hate Christmas trees (pine needles everywhere and garish lights); the crass commercialism drives me insane; you can't go to the supermarket for a loaf of bread without being subjected to Bing Crosby's "White Christmas"; and anyway I'm not religious and don't believe in God so to me the whole Jesus aspect of it is simply a nice story. But love it or hate it, Christmas is a time for family - about remembering that these people are connected to you in a special way (though sometimes we wish they weren't), that family is important, that we should all try to take better care of each other and all sorts of other warm and fuzzy things. So I always miss my family most at Christmas, and wish we didn't have to be so far away. This time, we weren't.
In South America (and most Western European countries barring the UK and ROI), the big day for Christmas is the 24th, not 25th. Thus late afternoon on the 24th of December we headed over to my cousin Carla's house in Morón where the Mendes Viegas side of the family (mum's side) was uniting. As is usual for any Argentine gathering, especially at Christmas, there were mountains of food including a delicious matambre made by my abuela Patricia, who makes the best matambre in the universe (I swear). We all ate and talked and later danced, and generally had a good time. Sebastian (Carla's husband) had bought a ton of fireworks so we had our own private display, which I quite enjoyed once I had gotten over being scared by the loud bangs. Santa came to visit, and even brought me a bunch of stuff which I was so not expecting including a sheep shaped CD holder and a book of short stories in Spanish (which is just what I need to practise). Then more talking and dancing and fun 'till bedtime.
Next day was to be spent at my aunt and uncle's Quinta (weekend house). Luckily the weather was gorgeous and we had a relaxing day by the pool, with yet more food (of course, what do you think this is). What could be better than feeling the sun beat down on your back, toes dipped in the pool, sipping mate and chatting with the cousins you haven't seen in eight years? I tried to catch up with as many people as possible, but the madness of Christmas, the amount of people, and my still far from perfect Spanish made it difficult to have a proper conversation with anybody. We finally got Mariano to sing for us at dusk (he's a professional singer) which was totally awesome - particularly good was the snippet of "The Magic Flute" which he executed with style and perfect German (he speaks like 5 languages). Finally it was time to say goodbye, which is always sad, but at least I have the memories of a great day.
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