Christmas time

Comparing how Christmas is celebrated in different countries I have realized there are a lot of curious traditions! Yesterday morning there was a documentary on TV about the samis. Apparently the samis - in addition to raising and hunting reindeers - also used to collect mushrooms. Amongst the mushrooms they picked up there were hemanitas, which is an hallucinogenous mushroom. That's when the samis - finding themselves high - saw flying raindeers and a fat man giving them food as a gift. This could explain the origin of Santa Claus! Let's remember the samis live in Lapland (northern Scandinavia) but especially in Finland, were Santa Claus is said to come from! Curious right? Just as curious as the fact that Santa Claus was originally dressed in GREEN, not in red. So what happened?? Coca-Cola started to dress their Santa in red (the brand colour) in their advertisements, making it extremely popular! So popular that nowadays all Santas are dressed in red, not in green! Talk about the power of marketing!

Anyhow, I'm posting a pic of our little sad PLASTIC Christmas tree... Every year we decorate it the same way. Maybe next year I should get my mom some new ornaments?

There was time for openning the presents, too! (Please forgive me for the horrible quality of the last picture):

My sister isn't a big fan of being taken a picture, so she's not here. My dad got a pair of wool socks that he very much needed and a fancy wine opener. My mom got a Guess red wallet she loved, my sister was surprised with her new Nike t-shirt and jumper, and I got the straighteners that I really really wanted! And they work perfectly!!! (Remington Wet2Straight).

We also took the time to go eat "calçots", a variety of onion that is grilled and dipped into a sauce made of tomatoes, almonds, onion, oil and vinagre, amongst other. Delicious!

Merry Christmas!