Tis the Season

The holiday season is so different over here. Much more low key and just not the huge push for shopping. The 8th of December was Ascension Day. I am still not sure who ascended but rumors have Mary as the lead contender. All the stores were closed. Then Saturday something else was being celebrated because the stores were closed again. Can you imagine that happening in the States where retailers use every event as a reason for a sale? I would have known that it was The Ascension of Mary because the Virgin Mary would be selling us mattresses at unheard of discount prices. There are really very few decorations to speak of. Christmas trees are pretty rare; lights strung up are also not that common. Even the shopping malls have more of a "we gotta do something so how about a few lights" approach to decorating. I have not seen a single Santa Clause at any of the stores. How does an entire country tell Santa what to bring them for Christmas? He and his reindeers must pick up a little extra time when flying over Spain on Christmas Eve. I also have not seen a single sale in any of the stores. I am not sure, but I heard that the government regulates sales in this country and there are only a couple of times a year that stores are allowed to have sales. I actually heard that is common throughout Europe. Don't quote me on this, I will check and see if that is true. But I have to say, nothing is going on right now, and I really have not seen many sales anywhere in Europe. It just seems so foreign to us that it is hard to believe. I was at the mall just a week before Christmas. It was crowded but not really packed with shoppers. The stores were almost empty. Very few people were carrying any packages. What was crowded was the grocery store. People were pushing around huge baskets filled with lots of chocolate, cookies, nuts, fruit and Christmas food. It further confirms the feeling that Christmas is about sharing a meal with family and friends and the gifts that are exchanged are just a footnote to the festivities.
I had my first party on the boat on Saturday. I thought it would be nice to invite all the people that are living on C-dock here over for a little Christmas celebration. It was fun getting to know them better and being able to call them something more than just Hey, Hola. There is a couple from Sweden next to me that has a 10-year-old boy with them. They have 4 other grown children back in Sweden. He is really adorable. Since he is the only kid around he has to keep himself entertained. He does a good job though and is always happy. I never see him walk anywhere. He is always running from one place to the next. I made hot apple cider and trifle, baked brae and Yum Yums. I explained that these were very traditional holiday foods for our family. They all wanted the recipe for the Yum Yums and the hot cider. I was surprised none of them had had hot apple cider before. I always thought it was a traditional Swedish thing. Guess not.