Wanderings and Ramblings : Our Spanish Christmas Adventure Part V--Christmas!

So, before I continue with our Spanish adventure, I feel compelled to mention the weather today here in Germany. For those of you who do not know, most of our German winter is one grey day after another, with snow or, as things warm up, rain on and off throughout and VERY little sunshine. The stereotypical image of weather in London or Seattle, absolutely applies here as well. In spring and fall we often have hard rains, and they often last for hours or even days, but we rarely have the truly intense storms that are so common in places like the American South.

So, it was a bit of shock to Marika and I as we headed out towards the tram for an appointment downtown and the sky very quickly darkened from grey to feeling almost like nighttime. The wind picked up and she and I were joking about houses falling on witches in nice shoes--it just felt like the East Texas "tornado is coming" weather of my childhood. There was no tornado, thank goodness, but about ten minutes later we had a very loud and intense and bright bolt of lightning while we rode towards downtown. Before my brain could even properly formulate a question about the advisability of sitting in a metal vehicle attached to a power grid in a lightening storm, hail began pouring from the sky. Hail, incidentally, is VERY loud when you are sitting in a large metal street car.

Arriving at Bismarkplatz, we had no choice but to go out into the storm, as we were at the end of the line. Luckily, we were a bit early and were able to duck into a store while the worst of the thunder and lightening struck and the hail petered out into rain and then a slushy snow--though we did end up having to walk in the slush (see below)which kept coming down hard for about half an hour.

Just when I think I have figured Germany out--something new and interesting happens to keep me on my toes :)

But let's get back to talking about warm and SUNNY Spain, shall we?

On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed sleeping in and a quiet breakfast on the terrace, before heading down to check out the beach. It was far too cold for ME to swim, but Marika is part polar bear and always likes the cold water best

and Rio braves it more and more often himself. David was a good dad and went out with them too

I like this shot, because you can see how the harbor curves around and the hills rise up to the north:

and I just enjoyed the scenery and sun:

On the way home, we stopped at the bakery on the corner by the house and went a little nuts picking out every pastry or cookie that looked good to make a dessert tray for our holiday dinner. Based on the number of items we chose, and German pricing we were expecting the bill to be about 20 Euro. We were rather amazed when the total was just over 6 Euro! But, who's complaining? Here we all are at our Christmas Eve chicken enchilada dinner, you can see the dessert tray in the foreground:

Of course, we popped open the crackers and donned our paper crowns as well!

We always "have our tree" and open gifts from family and friends on Christmas Eve--only gifts from Santa (one each, plus stockings, none wrapped) arrive on Christmas morning. So, we changed into jammies and had a nice time tearing into all the packages that Marika (our own Martha Stewart) had so beautifully wrapped for everyone.

The hit of the evening was the candy thermometer Rio got Marika. She is always wanting one, but did not think to request it and was truly surprised.

By the time we had everything open, all that sun and water had worn everyone down and the kids were ready to turn in. They left out wine and more pastries from "Santa" and crashed before we even managed to Facetime with their grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins in Colorado (though I admit to being more asleep than awake by then myself).