Vida

So I'm going to try to summarize my month to give an idea of Christmas in Mexico Presents The girls brought Christmas a little early when they went to a nicer area of Mexico City and bought some food that you can't find in Santa Fe. I was excited about bagels and hummus...yum. In fact, the morning after they bought it I was so excited I woke up early a nd throughly enjoyed a bagel. I formed a Christmas list which consisted mostly of hygiene products (I mean that's what I actually need), but also had some things I miss (Trader Joe's trail mix...I literally asked for pretzel bread (from Trader Joe's...99 cents) because I feel like here all they have is sweet and man, I like salty) and I asked for a couple splurge items as well as a few clothes/things I left at home. I told my sister and she took care of everything, dividing it up between people who asked, etc. Thanks Karen! =) (Everyone probably just would have gotten annoyed with me for not responding to emails for a

i still haven't quite figured where i stand on the should you say happy holidays or merry christmas and luckily i haven't had to think about it this year. they only have one here...feliz navidad i just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all merry christmas/happy holidays and let you know i love you lots and miss you. you can look for an update (a long one) on my holidays once they're all over.

So the holidays are DEFINITELY different here. So for Thanksgiving we had dinner at our house. It was pretty hectic and insane. There were around 50 people there and our house was filled to capacity...meaning very few people sat down, definitely not us and I was on stuffing duty so I put stuffing on everyone`s plates. I also felt pretty awful and I`m pretty sure i had a temperature so it was an interesting night. Definitely not like any Thanksgiving I experienced before. There is preparation for Christmas here too including lights and trees. I went to the mall yesterday and was quite disturbed to see a plasticy white santa claus taking pictures with the kids. I think he was wearing a mask. I`m loving advent as usual, but it`s weird to have the advent wreath and be wearing a tank top to mass... Also at the 1 o`clock mass we usually go to we`re usually crammed in the back standing so I didn`t see the wreath until last night when I went at 8 (yes I went twice yesterday because at

friday...friday a normal day as i head out the door, except i`m alone because melissa is sick. but that feeling only lasted a couple seconds as i see completely stopped cars and one side of the street there were no cars...only people walking-some running. Apparently there was a protest because a lot of people in santa fe do not have water right now (and haven`t for about 2-3 weeks). They didn`t get a warning that the water was being turned off and they say it was for repairing a pipeline, but there are doubts as to the real reason... I arrive in my classroom before the kids and I was very surprised and excited to see all new tables and chairs. Soon after the kids finished breakfast and i was so happy i got to see all their SUPER excited faces for the new tables and chairs. =) Poor Cristofer was so excited because he got new tennis shoes, but all the attention was directed at the new tables and chairs so he came up to me probs because he knew i would acknowledge his shoes, which i