El día de la Navidad

We managed to play the bi-cultural game to our advantage - two Christmas dinners. The first took place at Nick (John's boss) and Any's house, on the 24th. We feasted on four full courses (and we're talking four main courses here) of delicious Mexican fayre, from firey tomato and chilli soup, to chicken marinaded in mole, a tradicional blend of 60+ spices and often made with chocolate, giving it an incredible depth and richness. We were also greeted by one very cute 'reno' - reindeer.



The following morning, as the rest of Mexico was recovering from it's Christmas dinner, we were up early, after the arrival of a certain elf-like creature...
The kitchen was a hive of activity - a full roast was created, with all the tasty trimmings that we could source...



Whilst the turkey was cooking, we went for a wander around the jardín in the centre of town, a two-minute stroll from the house. There, we found Mary and Joseph, Baby Jesus (which was good to see, as we'd already spend the last few weeks pondering as to why there were an abundance of empty manegers - it seems tradition has it here that Baby Jesus only gets added after the 24th), and five sombrero-ed gúerittos.


Then followed present-time, of course. Jen, Catherine and David had between them carted Santa's very full sack half way around the world.
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without eating a chocolate orange for breakfast now, would it?


We had a beautiful and delicious Christmas dinner on the roof of our house, overlooking the volcano.



Then after a day of throughly British tradition, we strung up a Mexican 'pinata', and proceeded to destroy it... Tasty rewards lay within, you see...