At Home, part 10

The first half of December passed quickly as we prepared for our visit home. Betsy Pardo, who was Julie’s Girl Scout leader at ASM, told me it was often helpful to make that first trip back. “It kind of confirms for you and the kids that you live here now, not there,” she said. So we did some Christmas shopping and began to feel excited about seeing family and friends in Connecticut, New Jersey and Chicago.

Christmas celebrations in Spain were different from what we were used to. Christmas itself was a fairly quiet family holiday, while gift-giving happened days later on the holiday of Los Reyes Magos, Three Kings Day. There were special foods associated with the holiday, such as turrón, a nougat candy, and polvorones, little powdered-sugar cakes.

To make Christmas a little more American, the school held two activities. The first was Holiday House, a shopping bazaar where the kids could buy small gifts for the family. Coffee mugs and pens, key chains and Lucite paperweights would be imported from the U.S., and the classes would get a chance to come and shop for low-priced gifts. And the second was Breakfast with Santa, where the Lower School kids could get a pancake breakfast and a photo with a red-suited Santa. Mike took Lisa to that, and she came home smiling, waving her picture. “Look at me!” she said. “I’m gonna put this in my scrapbook!”

The Girl Scouts helped us celebrate the season, too. They had a service project in which they annually sang traditional Spanish Christmas carols, called villancicos, at a nursing home in Majadahonda. There were rehearsals for several days beforehand, and then a trip out to the nursing home on a Saturday, accompanied by us parents.

All Spanish homes displayed belenes, or Nativity scenes, at Christmas time, but mostly indoors, not outside, as is often seen in the U.S. Many were family heirlooms, whether made of wood or clay or plaster. There was a large, beautiful one in the activity room of the nursing home. “That’s so pretty!” Lisa whispered to me. “The statues are so teeny!” This particular belén was made of pale wood, and it was well lit in the teak-paneled room.

The residents of the home loved the performance of the twenty or so girls, and we all got a lot of pleasure from seeing their enjoyment. But I couldn’t help giggling at one of the villancicos that puzzled me. On the way home I asked the girls about it.

“Do you know what “Los peces en el río” is about?” I asked.

“Well, peces are fish, right?” said Julie. “And a río is a river.”

“Yep, that’s right,” I said. “But what are the peces doing in the río?”

Julie thought for a minute. “What’s beben mean?” she asked.

“Pero mira como beben los peces en el río,” I said, reciting the words of the song. “'But look how the fish in the river drink.' Sounds kind of silly to me!”

“Do fish drink?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “And the next lines: ‘But look how the fish in the river drink so they can see God born. They drink, and they drink, and they drink some more, the fish in the river, to see God being born.’ I don’t get it!”

We all started laughing—maybe not the most respectful way to respond to a villancico, but it struck me as very funny.