Our VERY Puerto Rican X-Mas in Santiago

Did I say what an amazing hubby I have?!! Well he is so great he made sure I had the most Puerto Rican X-Mas we could have considering our circumstance (we are in Spain). And how Puerto Rican can it get? Well I think having home roasted pork in the actual "vara", or as we call it "lechón a la vara", "arroz con gandules", "arroz con longaniza" and tostones makes it Puerto Rican enough! hahaha.So here are a few pictures and a small summary of how we spent our Christmas in Santiago, Spain.

On Christmas Eve we had our good friends Marlene and Rich over for a Spanish/Puerto Rican dinner. We had turkey, "arroz con gandules", potato salad, "tostones" and "tortilla española". It was mellow but fun.

Christmas day was such a fun day for us. We got everyone in the team involved and had such a great time. We had a traditional Puerto Rican Pork roaster done. And by done I mean we had a roaster made to order by a steel company. Anyways, me and my sis woke up early to season the pork and make rice, potato salad and cod fish fritters. Hey let's make it clear... Back home we roast over 100 pound pigs but here the smallest one was almost 200 pounds and we weren't enough to eat the whole thing so we ended up buying a piglet just for the sake of the tradition. It was so much fun though. Look at the pics!!

One of the most fun parts of the night was the secret Santa gift exchange. So Levon Kendall, one of Andres's teammates, had his parents over for Christmas and at a dinner they threw the idea of a special secret Santa. Everyone would bring a gift and we would do a drawing to see who would get to pick the first gift. I think we were like fifteen so we put little papers numbered from one to fifteen and everyone had to pick one. Obviously the person who picked number 1 would go first and so on. So the fun part is that all the gifts are in the table and the first person has to pick one gift. He/she keeps the gift unless person number 2 decides not to pick a gift from the table but get the first person's gift instead. In that case the first person gets to choose another gift from the table. So for instance Andrés was number three and he decided to get a gift from the table. His gift was a liquor hip flask that everyone after him wanted so everyone kept getting it when it was their turn. Good thing though I was the last to pick and since the last gift on the table was something I had brought I decided to get the hip flask back for Andrés. I don't know if it makes sense but we had a great laugh with this game.

Next Stop was New Years. New Years back home is usually a huge party with the whole family and sometimes we go after midnight to any after party at a hotel where we meet our friends. In Santiago people gather in the Cathedral and there's a huge firework show coming from the cathedral and then they have a stage with music. We are a tight group of four families who try to do the traditional celebrations together (Hopkins, Ere, Kendall and us). So anyways we made a reservation in a restaurant in the city center and then went to say "bye bye, ciao, adiós" to 2011 in the "plaza" in front of the Cathedral. It was so much fun. We had endless bottles of champagne, grapes and loads of fun. Here are some pics.

@ Restaurant Rúa del Villar 

Obradoiro team @ Cathedral

@ Afterparty

And then it was "Three Kings Day/ Three Wise Men Day or as I like to call it Día de Reyes".  I had some trouble with my camera so I don't have a lot of pictures but I do have one of our tree and the grass we left for the camels. At our household if there's no grass for the camels there are no gifts!! So we made sure to leave plenty of grass hahaha... 

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too and remember that no matter where you are you can always bring your traditions to your celebrations and share them with the new people you meet abroad. It definitely makes the festivities more enjoyable and closer to home. :)