Feliz Navidad

I would like to start by saying that I had a perfectly content holiday season here with my Spanish family.  Every person I was introduced to over the break gave me a card or a gift or money or some combination of the three.  Despite having met some of these relatives only one or two times for a total face time of a few hours they all treated me like I was one of the famliy.  From my family across the ocean I have so far recieved a single card, I do not know if that was all they sent or if some of it got 'lost' in the mail.  I hope my family sent nothing other than a card or two because I asked them not to, but of course family usually takes your considerations as seriously as president Obama takes the drunken late night e-mails half the nation sends him about how to fix exconomic policy.  It is possible that my family followed my advice, but more likely the case is that the terribly slow international mail system has yet to reach me, but most likely is that an employee noticed something in their mailbag that looked; delicious, pretty, fun, or useful, and decided, you know, who would really miss it.
So on to the actual holiday traditions.  First Christmas.  There are lights hung all throughout the city along with decorations and advertisments for over priced gifts, just like the U.S.  Santa, however, is quite different, instead of the jolly fat bearded old man, the Basque Country wanted to be different, so they went with an image that more resembles that creepy uncle you're not allowed to be left alone with.

The gifts in Santa's burlap sack this year somewhat resemble children, desperately trying to escape.

It looks like your gifts the next day will have the comforting smell of pipe tobacco, the message of course being 'Dammit kids, Santa is a working man, bet your daddy isn't perfect either, so how you gonna act! huh? HUH?!  I thought so, stifle your gag reflex and get into the goddamn spirit of giving.'  But I suppose it makes about as much sense as other hardcore Basque traditions, like a hairstyle I can only describe as a mullet made of dreadlocks.  But I'm getting side tracked, I did not even spend Christmas in San Sebastian, but rather in Barcelona.
I was informed by my host parents we would be leaving San Sebastian on the 23rd and returning on the 3rd of January.  Barcelona for 10 day!  Oh my goodness, how lucky am I, plus New Years, the biggest party of the year in the second biggest city in Spain where 'making out' with the closest stranger/attractive friend is pretty much madetory, count me in.  Now I have to mention that I was misinformed, well it was true we were not returning to San Sebastian until the third, we were defienately not spending all our time in Barcelona, My host mom has family in a different part of Europe that we need to visit, so on the 26th we all hopped back in the car, after the six hour car ride to Barcelona, for a twelve hour ride to Bretagne, and spent the rest of our trip there.
Barcelona is a beautiful city that has enough enough wonder to keep a person busy for a month, much less the three days I had.  Bretagne is a region in France with beautiful natural features that apparently kills you if you stay there too long.  Boasting one of the highest alcoholisim and suicide rates in France, Bretagne is the Emo kid of the European Union.

Not even Santa can go through Bretagne without a few eggnogs

That photo is real.  There are trees decorated like Santa swerved across the lane with his hatchback open and lost half his bag to the surrounding wilderness.  But just because the region is depressing does not mean my time there was a downer, I think five days is the perfect amount of time to spend in a place like that, it represents about the point where your lying in bed thinking 'Is there any reason to really get up today... or ever...?'  Then it hits you, 'We're leaving!  I'm gonna miss this place.'
Besides location, tradition is significantly different as well.  For meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the whole family here dressed up.  I was in a full suit with tie and looking very snazy if I do say so myself.  This is in contrast to my family in the States where the major fashion choice was me deciding whether or not to put a pair of pyjama pants over my boxers, or just march to the Christmas tree as is, in all my liberated but pointy nippled glory.  Instead I tried to eat a seafood dinner, statistically the most impossible meal to eat without butter dripping from your chin to your shirt, dressed up like Frank Sinatra Jr. 
For New Years my family in the States stayed at our cottage in the frozen tundra that is Canada in winter time, or approximately 10 months of the year.  They had no heat and no water, but on the bright side they had snow.  If you'll remember I spent New Years in a depressed village with little more than one thousand inhabitants.  I haven't spoken French in six months and found communicating more difficult than hiding from Sauron.  But somehow I had a good time.  Maybe it is the same reason why my family (and myself when I'm with them) enjoy the freezing cold, Hoth-like, cottage of ours.  It's not the ball drop or the alcohol or the tons of explosions and confetti.  No it is something much more special and close to our hearts.  It's the food, the delicious and copious amounts of turkey, roast beef, pies, and cakes all whipped up at Grandma's expense.  And love too, or something like that, I think, my brain isn't really working right now, my stomach is so full of meat and and sugar I'll explode if I don't go and take a nap right now, but I should be safe as long as Basque-Santa doesn't watch me while I sleep.