Christmas in La Cruz, Mexico

It never really felt like Christmas here in Mexico and I think it’s mainly because of the lack of street decorations, tv commercials, mall decorations and the like.  It’s probably not a bad thing seeing as that’s one of the ways Christmas gets out of control.  But you add 85 degree weather and no family to it…well, it feels like any other day.

But we made the best of it and it turned out pretty good.  We intended on a nice quiet Christmas eve with just us, much like we did Thanksgiving.  But when I found out there was to be a cookie decorating activity on our dock, I decided to ask if Jake could go.  When the older kids came to get him (“I’m fine mommy, you don’t need to go”), Andy and I decided to check out the dock party…just for an hour or so.  We had a nice pot of chili and presents for Jake waiting for us.

Well, the hour tuned into hours before we knew it.  We had a great time hanging out on the dock (albeit with people we barely knew) watching Jake run back and forth with the older kids from boat to boat, just happy to be playing with someone under 30 years old.  One of the dad’s pulled out a reindeer piñata and the kids got to wack at it for a while.  It didn’t take Jake long to figure out he needed to be speedy to get any candy (especially since he was the smallest).  The kids even got on the internet and tried to track Santa.  After a very late night, we finally went to bed so Santa could come to us.

Jake's first experience with a Pinata.

Jake crawled in bed with us Christmas morning like he always does and just laid there for about 15 minutes.  Finally, he whispered in my ear “Mommy, when do you think we can get up and open presents?”.  Who could resist that?  So we got up and sure enough Santa found the hatch we left open and left Jake a full stocking and his #1 toy on his list…Star Wars Legos!

We put legos together all morning and in the afternoon we went to a local restaurant where they provided the turkey and ham and everyone else brought a side dish (we took our chili).  It made for the largest potluck I’ve ever seen.  For $50 pesos we ate like kings.  They had live music and after dinner Santa handed out presents to about 500 local children.  They were lined up down the street.  It wasn’t dinner at mom’s but we were with good friends and got to see the meaning of Christmas first hand with all of the generosity of the folks at Philo’s.

Philo on the guitar with one of the local kids playing along.

This guy was great!

Even Bosun from Ulalena dressed up for the occasion.

It was hard to capture but kids were lined up around the corner to see Santa.

Does he look ready to go to you?

Today, it’s back to our normal routines and trying to clean up everything.  We don’t have piles and piles of wrapping paper and boxes like normal as it was a very modest Christmas here on Savannah but I did manage to put off doing dishes and putting up laundry for a few days.  And I’m stepping on legos everywhere I go.