Mega Christmas celebration--Spanish style ;)

Merry Christmas to all!! :)

Feliz Navidad and greetings from a Spanish Christmas time...it's not over yet, despite the 25th having come and gone. The holidays here are longer (as with many holidays in this country, hehe) and the most important day isn't associated with Santa visiting, but with the Kings Day (dia de los Reyes Magos--the Wisemen, to be precise) on January 6th. So the children are still awaiting their actual day of magic, beauty and gifts aplenty. :) The tradition of Santa Claus/Father Christmas is making a presence in the country, but with the influence of other countries, and mass commercialism, of course. Ah globalization.....spend spend spend!

Okay, moving away from my rants and sarcasm, I present to you all, my first experiences of a Spanish Christmas--part 1. :)

I was invited to spend Christmas Eve (the big dinner day, rather than Christmas Day) with a big group of people, and decided that I shouldn't go empty-handed. So the day before, I started off baking and made some butter cookies that turned out quite successfully.

The next day, I continued on baking and tried to create little snacky-type cinnamon snails, courtesy of a recipe from Michelle's family favourites. Well for some reason it was all sticky and messy and I couldn't roll the dough as expected (**If anyone can think of a reason why, please let me know.....I don't know how to diagnose baking problems!) so I shoved it all into muffin tins and baked the heck out of them. Here you see the results of the excessive flour and muffins---they turned out to be huge hits with the family though! They were yummy and cinnamony but more breakfast-y than anything.

So on Christmas Eve, I took my baking treats to a posada (guesthouse) that is owned by Rubén's aunt's family, and met a huge group of wonderful people. Below are almost all of them, save two young boys who were off running around, excited and giddy about the expected arrival of Santa, plus a mom and grandma chasing after them. It's a bit complicated to explain who is who, but basically you see Rubén's family, with his mom, dad, brother, and aunt and uncle, cousins and grandparents, and family of the aunt's brother and the cousin's girlfriend. :) It took me most of the night to sort people out with names, faces and relationship.

As you can see, there were tons of food, consisting of plates of ham, big prawns, empanadas, smoked salmon, bread, salad. Then once we cleared most of these plates, along came more. First course, second course, third course......such is the tradition of the culture!! :) There was yummy cod with potatoes and onions, and refills of more wine, and then once that was all done, desserts were brought out. Typical sweets for Christmas include turrón (like nougat, but of various sorts--hard, soft, with almonds, with other nuts and seeds, with chocolate etc etc), polvorones (soft, powdery biscuits that explode into dust if you don't squeeze them together before eating), piñones (sweet marzipan balls coated with pinenuts and sugar) etc. Plus the sweets I baked earlier, which earned applause and put me into consideration as contract baker for the posada (hmmmm....could be a good gig--baking a bunch of things for breakfast for the guests once every few days...). ;)

After all the eating, it was pretty much getting close to THE TIME. The big guy would be coming anytime, and this year, the big guy bore an eerie resemblance to Rubén's dad Marcelino. :) Hmm, wonder why. Anyhow, just a bit after midnight (the big guy was late due to bad weather and traffic problems), there was a bit of an uproar as the kids "smelled Santa Claus" approaching from the back door. The whole family suddenly scrambled to the window and lo and behold, saw the bearded fellow traipsing around by the neighbour's house. They raced around the building, screaming and yanking the kids back and forth to look out various windows and doors, and peeped at Santa to see what he was doing. Someone made sure to reassure me that this was not a "typical" Spanish tradition, but something their "unusual" family invented for fun and giggles. ;) Cool beans. :)

About a minute after that, there was a mad rush into the hallway and lying on the floor were piles of presents left by Santa!!! The kids went crazy as they looked at the packages and shouted out the names of the receivers. Even the dog got a package--Santa remembers to bring one every year!

Shortly after the Santa excitement, about 10 of us got into two cars and drove to the monastery of Somo, because someone said that it'd be interesting to see La Misa de Gallo (rooster's mass =midnight mass), so heck, why not. We arrived late, around 12:30am due to the aformentioned excitement, and the people that were there (about 7, plus about 5 nuns and the priest) looked at us "knowingly" (that we weren't faithful punctual followers of the church, ahem) but beckoned us in. We continued on listening and standing and sitting as requested, but religious terminology hasn't made its way into my Spanish repertoire yet... Closer to the end, the priest decided to pick on young Nico and asked what Christmas meant to him, and what he liked about the mass. Oof. He answered very well, very diplomatically and said it was about family and that he liked the music. :) Then the priest asked for his dad, and asked him the same question. He answered honestly, saying that they are not used to going to these sort of things, but that he agreed and said it was very interesting and good experience for his family. Well done. I sat there, close to the front of the room with my head down, hoping that he wouldn't call on me, as I definitely stood out as not being a Spaniard!! :) There was bread and wine for whoever wanted to go up, and some carols sung and prayers, and then by 1pm it was over. Not sure what to make of it, but the family was in hysterics afterwards in the car and back at the posada as a lot of them were trying hard not to laugh and interrupt the mass. ;D Lol. Lots of nods and whispers about leaving, even from the older members of the group, who didn't feel comfortable either!

To lighten up the mood again, someone decided it was time for some good old-fashioned gambling. Rather than money, the family opted at first for dry macaroni and then changed to the dependable standby of beans. :)

Fun for all ages! :)

Observing the card game from the sidelines

Yes--cheering on the cards!

Looks of concentration on father and son....

One happy face amongst the serious ones....guess we can tell who has good cards!

Christmas Day is not as big of a day in Spain as the night before, and usually involves a special lunch, but of a smaller scale. Since we had all gorged the previous night, it was a lighter affair with only Rubén, his brother Davíd and their parents, Marcelino and Rosa Maria.
Of course having said "smaller" meal, it is all relevant and still included various courses! :) Their mom is a really good cook and even made flan, which she attempted to tell me the recipe of, but which I have since forgotten..... (eggs, condensed milk and regular milk in a bain marie, but I forget the proportions and times....). It was delicious as you can see! :)

We all sat around, chatting and relaxing after another big meal, and enjoying the sunshine that had made an appearance that morning.

Kitchen experiments of late :)

Recently, we've been on a roll and been having fun trying out new recipes and improvising in the kitchen. The other day, we made the pizzas that were lovely to look at but not quite crispy enough. Still tasty but not quite perfect. Then Rubén suggested we try making béchamel sauce for stuffed eggplant, and I said, hey, why not, something new. Having never made it, and not knowing what it is supposed to be like, I hopped on the all-knowing internet and found an easy recipe on Epicurious. Carefully following the recipe, I made bechamel for the first time, and according to the judge, it was pretty perfect consistency! Yay for beginner's luck! :) We made nice stuffed eggplants on Saturday and saved some of the sauce for Sunday's experiment.

We attempted to try our hands at a popular Spanish dish--croquetas, usually with some bits of ham, but we just used cheese since we didn't have any bits on hand. We had to make more sauce, but this time the consistency needed to be thicker for the croquetas. Turned out relatively well, though texture wasn't quite perfect, but hey, edible and decent in appearance. :)

For some reason, here in Spain if you order lasagna, they usually give you a meat one with béchamel sauce, so they are used to very minimalist lasañas. I had never put béchamel in my lasagnas, but since we had leftover, threw that in with my usual roasted veggie and minced meat creation. It turned out quite well and the sauce was pretty good--leftovers for emergency frozen dinners too! :)

These next few days involve a bit of a break to meet up with some friends, and then NYE will be part 2 of super-Spanish-holiday-partying, as we are going to celebrate with friends, dinner with more of Rubén's family and then continue on toasting and champagne-ing into New Year's Day. :) When the clock strikes 12 times at midnight, it is tradition to eat 12 grapes, to the beat of the chimes. May have to practise before going, so that I don't choke or miss the beat! ;D Lol

Where will you all be when 2010 rolls around? Post a comment and share! :)