Christmas, Navidad, Natal

Sunday, December 24th.
I went to Chris´ to get ready and dress up as Santa. The outfit would not be so bad if the fake beard wasn´t that awful looking and the heat wasn´t extreme. It must have been around the high 80´s or low 90´s. Fortunately it rained hard just before the celebrations and it colled down the air a little.

By 9pm my mother called us and as usual I talked to my whole family and they asked me different questions about life, the weather and when I would finally return for a visit. I wanted to laugh but acted well and pretended I was in US.

The drive from Chris´ to my parents is about 5 minutes and I got more apprehensive. We were expecting only the kids to approach me outside where it was darker. I went inside and suddenly everybody started screaming `SANTA´, `SANTA`, `SANTA`, which was more like `PAPAI NOEL! PAPAI NOEL!!!!´. IT WAS TOO FUNNY. And hard to remain calm. All the kids ran to me and started touching me and talking at the same time. The adults starting to approach, looking at me, taking pictures. I guess they were all trying to find out who santa was because my mother had antecipated it would be a surprise.

One of my cousins, Renato, came too close and noticed. He said `I know this Santa!!!`, and then my grandpa, the last person I thought could recognize me, came close and gave me a big hug. `let me hug Santa!!!!´ My mother told us later that my grandma´s sister made a comment like `Oh my God! Antonio is getting real senile, returning to childhood. I can´t believe he went ahead of the kids to hug Santa!´
In fact, he knew already about the surprise. Fearing for his health, my sister warned him about me coming as Santa. She told me later that when she told him he thanked her and cried a little in her room.

By the time he gave me a hug, I couldn´t hold anymore, I took all the sh@t out, the hat, beard, glasses. They all screamed in joy and it was just fun to watch everybody´s reactions! The kids were a little puzzled, some of them disappointed but we thought they would understand.

The Christmas now is different from when I left. It is much more fun! The kids make it more entertaining. There was a moment before I left when Christmas had kind of lost its spirit. There were only adults in the family and it wasn´t as fun, plus everyone would come late and leave real early.
It was nice to see everyone happy and enjoying each other´s company.

I spent some time with each of them trying to catch up and of course they had many questions about my life in LA.