Christmas in Madrid

We finished work on the 22nd December - for Kate her last day as she won't be returning in the near year. It was a horrible, wet day but still some students made it in, and what with our uber-generous boss Will handing our glasses of Cava and plates of turron to teachers and students, much fun was had. The generosity didn't end there, as we were both given (as were all the teachers) a Christmas hamper containing Champagne, Rioja and chocolates. Nice!!

We promptly opened one of the bubbly bottles the following night when Belen, Cesar and Nataly joined us for a Christmas dinner: mulled wine, nut roast, roasted spuds, cauliflower cheese, broccoli and onion gravy, followed by Christmas pudding and rum butter. The Spaniards seemed to enjoy it all and though we had so much left over we knew we wouldn't need to cook again on Christmas Day itself!
Christmas Eve morning was spent hanging around while the technician from Telefonica fixed our internet, then we had a lovely lunch with our American friend Anne at Artemesia after checking out an exhibition at Alcala 31. Then, after some last minute Christmas shopping - Fosbella had finally decided what she wanted to get Kate for Christmas so I went to pick that up - we settled down to watch a whole load of You Tube.

Kate and I have clearly been very good this year as we woke up to two very full Christmas stockings at the end of the bed. Kate got some tea, chocolate, underwear and handbag; I got boxers, turron, and a jumper. Eventually we got up and had scrambled eggs on toast, Skyped our families, ate left-overs and opened more presents. My family gave us some useful baby things, including a sling. We both practised wearing it, using a stocking stuffed with clementines as a baby stand-in.
Kate gave me an Ipod - awesome - and I got Kate series 1 to 4 of Bones, while the Rainbow family had sent us the movie Once on DVD, so we snuggled down to watch those. Nothing particularly Spanish about our Christmas, but bloody lovely though.