Feliz Navidad!!!

Merry Christmas!  We had quite the experience celebrating our first Christmas here in Peru!  As I had mentioned previously, we were spending it with my translator Stefanny and her family.  The tradition here is that everyone celebrates Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning.  So at about 10:00 p.m. we arrived at her family's house, wine in hand, ready for the feast to come.  The streets here were completely packed with people, even at that time of night.  Everyone starts shooting fireworks off throughout the evening but the real ones start at midnight!  We met and visited with her family for a while once we arrived.  Her mom, dad, 2 sisters, their husbands, 1 brother, his wife, 1 nanny, and 3 grandchildren were all there, very excited about Jesus’ birth and Santa's arrival.  Right before midnight we went outside and shot some huge fireworks off.  They were going off all around us actually so it was really loud and crazy.  As we were all outside, Santa decided it was the best time to come and deliver presents!  When we went back inside, there were a bunch of presents under their tree...so sweet!  Their Nativity scenes here are all huge and Stefanny's family's was no different.  It took up most of the space in the dining room where we all were congregated and probably had over 250 pieces in it...down to a triceratops--see the pictures!--and hippo (who knew they were at Christ's birth!?!)  So once we were all back inside, lots of hugs were given and then they proceeded to give everyone sparklers, lit them and we all took turns waving them over the Nativity scene!  Then we sat to open presents.  They were so generous and even presented Vince and I with a small gift of chocolates and a Peru figurine.  They each took turns handing out their gifts to each person in the family.  With each, they would chant "Abrir-lo!  Abrir-lo!" or "open it!"  Of course, Vince and I chimed in and by the end of it, we had them all chanting "Open it!  Open it!"  They loved it, especially Stefanny's mom who wouldn't start opening her gifts until we were all chanting it.  Mixed with their Spanish accents, by the time we were done, it sounded like we were all shouting "Happiness!  Happiness!" which was ironic considering how much happiness was in the room. 
Then it was finally dinner time.  We sat around the table at 2 a.m. for our feast and we were all very ready for food.  We had a huge turkey, a meatloaf-type thing with turkey, chicken, beef, and duck mixed together, and lots of salads and bread.  It was amazing!  By the time we were done with dinner, Vince and I were almost sleeping at the table.  We called a cab, and headed home for a good night sleep in our new apartment.  The one thing we did notice on the way home was the streets.  They were absent of all the thousands of people we had seen earlier but filled with paper and trash!  It looked like a different town.  It seemed like they had literally brought all their presents outside, unwrapped them on the streets, and left all the paper!  It was quite a change from the usually spotless streets of Arequipa.
Christmas day we finally got to lounge around and relax together in our apartment...what a breath of fresh air!!!  It has made such a difference in our sanity to be in our own space.  We spent the afternoon talking with our new neighbors--one from the U.S. who is very interesting and has lots of life experiences to tell us about and two from England--a couple that is our age here teaching English.  They are all really nice and fun.  We actually spent Christmas night with the couple from England, Steve and Lucy, sharing some wine, stories, and celebrating Steve's birthday with cake!  It was great and felt really good to be meeting people here that were so similar but different than Vince and I. 
Well, 2010 Christmas is over and we really can't believe it.  We have such wonderful families and friends worldwide and miss every one of them.  Hope everyone's Christmas was as great as ours or better!!!