Twas the Season

On the morning of December 1, the day after my family left Sevilla, we got a surprise visitor in the form of Juan Luis's pint-sized mother from Madrid.  Well, Marie and I knew she was coming but we had forgotten until we heard a strange voice in the hallway and poked our heads out the door wondering why the vegetable delivery person was being so chatty.  Grandma Lola had just arrived on the high-speed AVE train and was staying for the week. The hot topic of discussion in our house for the week preceding had been which twin brother got to sleep on a camp bed in the office / laundry room and which brother had to share the trundle bed with Grandma Lola.

Grandma Lola was a hoot.  She was the chattiest, spunkiest little Grandma that ever came up to the top of my shoulder.  She had thin, painted-on eyebrows that had partly rubbed off by dinner the first night. Luckily Lola had experience with Juan Luis and Marta's American students and she spoke slowly and clearly for us.  Lola was a world traveler, much like both my grandmas (shout out to Jean Hummon and Nancy Stevens!) and she loved to regale us at dinner and lunch with stories of her adventures.  She showed us some tai chi moves at the dinner table while enthusiastically emphasizing her superb health as shown by the fact that she had never taken a pill.

Marta's favorite Christmas song

December had finally arrived, and with it the proximity of the end of our time in Sevilla.  December meant that the absurd amount of time spent listening to Marie's Christmas spotify playlist in our room was legitimized.  Sevilla erupted into a veritable milky way of Christmas lights covering all the streets, the Corte Inglés making a particularly good show.  Our free time was spent canvassing the chinos and other gift shops for our JYS secret santa presents.  Juan Luis pulled out the the anise flavored liqueur that he only drinks at Christmas time and we were all allowed to sample some after lunch.  Instead of her usual soothing classical music in the morning, Marta turned on her favorite Christmas CD while she cooked in the morning, and Marie and I had soon learned all the words while we sat eating our copos de maíz. 

saying goodbye to one of my classes 

December also meant the beginning of the goodbyes.  It was my last week of Tea Time, of volunteering at the Maristas school and Marie and my last week of teaching English to Prado and Monica, Marta's friend's daughters.  My younger classes at the Maristas made me cards, certificates of achievement for being "nice" and "funny" and sang me songs.  The classes ended in mob-like group hugs and it was all I could do not to topple over and land on an unsuspecting youngster.  In my class of 16-year-olds, I gave in to their semester-long pleas for me to speak Spanish and was bombarded with questions about where to study abroad in America.  I left them my email.

On our last day with Prado and Monica we drew Christmas scenes, learned Christmas vocab words and ended visit by transforming the living room into a snowflake factory.  I'm not sure exactly what we were doing wrong, but our snowflakes all turned out square. 

Marie, Monica, me, Prado

December also meant that Marie and I began to get ridiculously excited for December 8, the day of celebration in Spain where everyone puts up all their Christmas decorations.  On the anticipated day, we had planned to go to mass with Marta, but she told us that we were better off going to watch the parade in town because there was a chance that mass would be very long and boring. So we went to Plaza Nueva and watched every marching band in Sevilla pass by.  After lunch, the real fun began.  All the Christmas decorations came out of hiding and Marie and I joined Marta, Juan Luis and Borja in decorating the whole house while Grandma Lola cheered us on from the couch.  The decorations included: an adorable mini Christmas tree, a nativity scene taking up all three of the lowest bookshelves complete with a headless king from when Marta was little, a ceramic niño Jesus in a basket and a moose ornament hanging from our bedroom doorknob. 

Marta always makes pancakes (tortitas americanas) for the afternoon snack on December 8, and I had accidentally volunteered to make my mom's buttermilk pancakes for the family.  However I underestimated the difficulties of making buttermilk pancakes in a country without buttermilk, using an unfamiliar stovetop and keeping the pancakes warm.  Consequentially, though no one complained, some of the pancakes were slightly burned, most were lumpy and not all were warm.  However, full of chocolate chips and covered in whipped cream even experimental pancakes taste good.  I had a hard time eating any of them but only because we had sampled every kind of Sevillan Christmas cookie at lunch.  A great way to kickstart the holidays.