Christmas in Santa Fe

I just spent my frist Christmas away from home...and I'd say it went pretty well. Sunday after church Mario and I came home and after 2 weeks of asking me every day if he could open them, we finally opened all the gifts from my family. Later that day we drove to Mario's brother's house a couple of hours away and had a great Christmas Eve dinner with Mario's parents, Paco, Alicia, Pilar, and Alicia's dad and stepmom. The dinner that Alicia prepared all by hand and then just stored in the fridge at a local caterer was delicious!
At midnight we toasted and watched all the fireworks set off by various neighbors, then went inside just as it started to rain and opened gifts.
Christmas day we had lunch with Mario's extended family in Santa Fe, then headed to the POOL! The Smart sisters will be pleased to hear that Mario has so taken to diving sticks that we have not one, but TWO sets of sticks, which we play with at the same time. Mario, Paco and I played until we drew blood.... great times. Here Pilar lines them up to throw for us.

Happy Hour at the Mall!

I discovered a new dimension of frantic holiday shopping last week in the form of "Happy Hour" (actually what they call it) at the local mall. This is how it works. Starting at 10 pm, they make announcements over a loud speaker calling out "Store X is offering 20% discounts, you have 5 minutes to get your tickets." In which case anyone wanting to purchase RUNS to this store to get a special ticket from a guy in a clown costume standing out front. Then, with this ticket, customers have the rest of the night to make a purchase with 20% off. Every 20 minutes or so they make another announcement with discounts between 10 and 30 percent off. This starts on the last shopping night before Christmas, and goes from 10 pm until 3 am!!!

We went by the mall to go to the movies with some friends, and although I had long finished all my Christmas shopping, the shopping spirit in me was rather antsy at missing out on possible discounts and jumping to join the frenzy. But alas I restrained myself (or Mario restrained me, I'm not sure which) and we headed to the theater...

The night before, we headed to the river and hung out on the beach all night chatting and drinking maté.

Torture or Train??

Clearly I'm making up for no posts for a month here... but just wanted to post this picture of Mario being trained on a new machine to help neurological patients learn how to walk. The clinic he works at just bought it and a special trainer came from Switzerland to teach Mario and three others how to use it.

It's quite a contraption with straps and harnesses and computerized everything, and I think it's a rather flattering photo... :)

Una Casa de Navidad

With a couple of strands of garland and my beloved advent box being all I brought from my previous life in the way of Christmas decorations, I was essentially starting from scratch this year. And I will just briefly say that, as with almost every other category, shopping for Christmas decorations is NOT what it is in the USA...and once again I am filled with envy of my friend Linsey in Peru and her diplomatic pouch...

As many who know me are aware, I have wonderful childhood memories and thus very strong feelings tied to having a live, transported-on-the-top-of-your-car, drops-pine-needles-all-over-the-house, wonderful smelling Christmas tree. However, that does not exist here in Argentina, so I was reduced to searching for an acceptable false replacement. Mario's first comment was "We don't need a tree, we can share my parent's tree." That was the point at which I stopped even commenting on Christmas decorations to him. I have a most wonderful, loving husband and I adore him more than I can describe, but sometimes I think "he just doesn't GET me!"

But after much searching, I did in fact find a tree that was taller than 3 feet, with more than 4 branches, and some acceptable decorations for it, and I bought some felt and made some stocking, and we are now feeling very festive here in our house.

Our Top 10 for 2006

It's been quite an eventful year for us, so we're posting our top 10 for those who want to skip the details and just catch the highlights.

10
Much to the joy of our parents, we were married in Argentina in April and had an absolutely fabulous celebration with our family and friends.
9
We took a fantastic trip to the US and visited lots of friends while touring San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and attending my sister’s wedding in Arizona.
8
Eight months after the initial decision to buy – we moved into our new house! (But don’t worry, there’s still work to be done!)
7
We were assigned to help a small branch of our church in Funes, about 20 minutes from home, where we met our great new friends, the Azcuy’s.
6
Mario has so impressed the coach of his new tennis classes that he is begging him to begin tournaments.
5
Adrianne started tennis classes, reconfirmed that her horrible performance in college tennis class was not a fluke, and stopped attending.
4
Mario discovered the joy of purchasing via the internet and we now spend many a night searching CircuitCity.com, amazon.com, amongst others.
3
Going on six months without one, we have discovered it IS possible to live without a telephone – but at long last we did get internet at home.
2
We were released from our assignment in Funes and Mario was called as Bishop of our church ward in Rosario.
1
We discovered that something as easy and cheap as a home pregnancy test can change your life forever – and now anxiously await the arrival of a little Argentine-American next June!

We truly have been very blessed this year, and we want to wish all of our wonderful family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2007. And remember Argentina in your travels plans - we LOVE visitors!