Christmas in Castro

Well Christmas has come and gone and it was a good one! I went full Pinterest. Lol. It was so much fun decorating and wrapping presents and Seb was a baking/cooking maestro! For Christmas Eve we joined our friends at Palafito Waiwen for a great feast!

The whole gang plus a few guests! (Photo courtesy of Palafito Waiwen)

We had a gift exchange within our circle of friends and my secret Santa got me drill bits!!! You know what that means!  I GOT A DRILL FOR CHRISTMAS!  Yeah man!

So the big day was finally upon us… We still had so much to do! I do not know how my mother does this every year!  Back in October, Castro was putting out Christmas stuff, but me being the stubborn American I am, couldn’t allow myself to buy anything until after thanksgiving…but then I found myself scrambling the week before our party cause they had switched to New Year’s stuff already! Yes, I waited until the week before to do things…don’t judge me! haha.

Finding specific items in a foreign country can be a challenge. I wanted to get my secret Santa a new apron for the kitchen… I must have asked 20 different places for a delantal de cocina… Not one apron in the whole town!! I also wanted to make Jill’s (my sister) Christmas Gingers, which called for molasses, but I was not able to locate that either! Ugh! Anyway…..

I love Pinterest. I’m on that website probably a little too much! You know you have a Pinterest addiction when your family posts things like this on your Facebook page…

I made paper stars, a little luminary scene, handmade a few bows for presents, and salt dough ornaments with my friend Jewelz. If you are feeling froggy, I included links to the tutorials I followed. I loved how everything turned out!

They don’t sell real trees here and we weren’t totally sure we wanted to get one this year cause Bruno is really into stealing things and running to his bed to play with them. Our luck, we’d find our tree in his bed! So we did what all normal, functioning adults would have done….we pulled off on the side of the road and plucked a few evergreen branches! I clumped a few of them together as our “tree”, which we hung well out of reach of Bruno, and decorated it with our ornaments and a few of my favorite ornaments I brought from home.

Bruno loved the antlers! NOT!!!

My grandma made them and they are very special to me so they go wherever we go! I’m also trying to make a new ornament each year so when Seb and I are old and grey at least our tree will be full of memories of Christmas past!

We made a little display with the luminary scene, some oranges with cloves (smells amazing), and this pretty red tray that had our foie gras and appetizers on it…that’s right…we found foie gras in Chile! Sebastian found it online from Helene de Fleurac.

Display area before it was all put together. So Christmasy!

He made a fantastic terrine and you serve it with bread and onion marmalade, but I just like to eat it all by itself. SO GOOD!

Dinner was delicious! Nicolas came over early to cook the turkey (which was so juicy and wonderful) and Seb had spent hours making garlic herb potato croquets, stewed German red cabbage, vanilla mulled wine, honey and thyme roasted carrots, asparagus and the creamiest gravy ever! I should have taken a pic of my colorful plate but I couldn’t control myself and had to start eating immediately! I think I’m still full haha.  We had so many lovely desserts too! Seb made gingerbread from scratch and dipped them in chocolate and now I’m addicted to them!! I threw together some English Christmas crackers…not the kind you eat! They are these little gifts you pull apart and they have a toy, a really terrible but hilarious joke, and a paper crown in them. Look how cute we are in our crowns!

Jewelz, Lucia, Nicolas, Carlos, Maureen, Pablo, me, and Seb was the photog. Next time we are getting a full group pic!

All in all, it was a magical night. We ate, drank, and were merry! I hope Christmas was a joy for you too. Blessings to everyone this holiday season and in the New Year as well!

 

Saludos!

Sarah