Christmas Time's a-Comin'

The last month or so in Madrid was a little bit of a blur. In November we were going to have a Thanksgiving dinner, but then I caught what must have been the Spanish plague (or I guess maybe the flu) and we had to reschedule. So our Thanksgiving dinner became a Christmas dinner, since we didn't have it until last weekend. It was a lot of fun (although hectic), and it was great to see NYU people from last year who I haven't seen since last June.

The NYU girls.

Group shot.

School was especially hectic the past couple of weeks, between field trips, Christmas concerts, the kids having to finish their textbooks before the end of the trimester (that's right, even kindergarteners in Spain apparently have to finish up their book of fichas, which I'm not really sure how to translate but it's basically just a bunch of worksheets that they have to apparently complete by the end of each trimester).

Santa with all of his reindeer.

The primary school students had to learn a crazy country Christmas song called "Christmas Time's a-Coming" for a Christmas concert, and they actually did a really good job (some of them even played instruments, instead of playing the music from a cd). With my preschoolers, I decided to teach them "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and all of my students colored a reindeer, which we then hung on the wall with Santa in his sleigh.

For some reason, this year's Christmas season didn't really feel like Christmas to me; I'm not sure if it was because we didn't have any Thanksgiving dinner or because for the first time in many, many years I didn't have papers to be writing and finals to be studying for. But Christmastime in Madrid is always cool; there are lights and trees and decorations (and people selling decorations) all over the city. The lights this year were the same as the ones they used last year, but they moved them to different parts of the city, so some I didn't get a chance to see last year and were new to me. This photo album has all of my pictures of the lights and other Christmas stuff in Madrid.

Feliz Navidad!