Let me tell you one thing—Christmas this year was the bomb. Now, it was no family Christmas with the knowledge that most of the rest of the people I care about live in the same valley or one state over. While the ocean did present its emotional difficulties, I still really enjoyed my Christmas. As mentioned 75,000 times before, Kristin and Jeremy came to visit for about five days and we had a blast. We walked around the city looking at old buildings and beautiful parks. We went to the Christmas market. We played jillions of games of Euchre, Rook, and Nerts. We cooked tons of good food. We went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve (technically Christmas Day, I suppose) in the gorgeous cathedral by the palace. We ate churros and chocolate. We went to a wild version of The Ugly Duckling—in Spanish and including break dancing along with ballet. We went to the Prado (and yes K & J found the lactating Virgin Mary painting). On Christmas day, we woke up really late (10:45), opened our stockings and then made a rad breakfast. Unfortunately for one sweet rolls recipe I read one tablespoon of salt instead of one teaspoon but they were salvageable…just pretty salty. We ate royally and then attacked the presents. Thanks to everyone for all the zesty items you sent! Um, seriously, between Astin and I, we got 11 boxes of tea. This is especially excellent because the tea here is awful. It’s the weakest tea in the whole world, perhaps. We’ve bought zillions of types and they’re all lame. But NOW we are enjoying cup after cup of full-strength almost-heaven. This has consequences later, at say 3:00 in the morning, but it’s fun while it lasts. After presents we all stumbled to various locations for a nap. Then later that evening we went to a free concert which was rocking. Okay, not literally rock music, but I am struggling with the adjectives today. No, it was an awesome opera-style singer and a string quartet. Salve for the soul. Then we went on a self-guided light tour. All in all, it was a beautiful time. Two extra people made all the difference in the world for what would have otherwise been a bleak holiday. I’ll post some pictures above. Woot!

Packages from The Girls, J.A., and S.B.A. are still in-transit but I’ll let you know when they get here! In the meantime, thank you so much to those who called, sent cards, sent packages, sent messages, etc. This week I begin the slow process of thank-you cards and walking off that Christmas candy. :D I hope you had a lovely holiday and I want to hear about it!