Our New Years was uneventful, as we have found that it is quite hard to celebrate the festivities and traditions of the PR culuture if you are not part of a Puerto Rican family. The traditions run deep and are pretty sacred to the family; outsiders, or mere aqaintances, are usually not part of the celebrations. (Naomi has made a friend through volleyball that has been over to visit her on a couple of occasions. He made the comment that he was surprised when we invited him in from the patio area and visited for a long while. He said that receiving invitations to enter someone's home in PR is a very personal thing.) Needless to say, although I am trying my hardest to become a part of the culture while we are here and give the kids the fullest experience, we stayed home on New Years Eve, yet celebrated with at least one of the PR traditions. There are two different versions of the traditional grape eating that takes place at midnight. One says that everyone must try and eat/swallow 12 grapes from the 12 second countdown, in order to usher in 12 months of good luck. If you fail to eat all 12 by the stroke of midnight, you fail to receive the good luck that many months. The other is to just simply eat 12 grapes at midnight. We're went for the latter, and so each had our 12 grapes at midnight and listened to the fireworks go off all around San Juan, near and far, for about 2 hours. Living in the tourist area, there were many big hotels having displays and parties to the break of dawn. Yes, they will party until the break of dawn the next morning, and not only on New Years :/
~This past Friday, January 6th, was Three Kings Day. I think I like this Puerto Rican tradition because its meaning centers around the gifts the three kings, or magi, brought the Christ child instead of the American tradition of Santa Claus. There is no escaping an American influence like Santa, but even in 2012 the centuries old tradition of celebrating Three Kings Day on the island, 6 days after Christmas, is alive and well, and still very deep rooted. Yes, the kids in PR get gifts on both occasions (score for them!), but de Reyes, or Three Kings, is much more emphasized than Santa. Like the cookies all westerner's leave for Santa on Christmas Eve, the kids of PR leave grass out for the king's camels the night before.There are more family festivities and lots of food for the day. Again, I couldn't let the kids go without experiencing TKD for themselves.
1st photo is the photo station in the mall with the three kings. Not Santa, but the three kings:) The next photo shows a common display of the three kings above an apartment entryway on our street.
Below is our own little set-up for Three Kings Day. Wyatt had a hard time finding grass to leave out for the camels since we are surrounded by concrete. The "kings" left little trinkets for each of them the next day. Two Christmas's is not an easy thing to do (meaning more gifts), and a little unnecessary, so I stuck to very small surprises just to give them the idea:)
There are still more festivities to come in January. Next weekend marks the official end of the Christmas season with the big island celebration of San Sabastian Festival, honoring the catholic saint and martyr said to have been shot with arrows by the Roman emporer Diocletian. San Sabastian festival is known as the "Mardis Gras" of PR, so we will see and experience for ourselves, very cautiously.
Hunter goes back to the baseball academy this week, marking the official end of our Christmas break here at the "casa". I am so ready to get back to some sort of routine with the kids and their school. I think I speak for all of us. Naomi will be staying 2 to 3 days a week with a family from our church and helping with their home schooling efforts, not to mention enjoying her stay with this wonderful family in the upper class resort community in which they live on the beach in Dorado; sure hope she can keep up her own online studies in such a terrible place;) We will be hunting for a baseball league to get Wyatt involved in with the hope that at least the coach will speak English. I will still travel to the baseball academy once a week to give the boys an English lesson as I will be introducing them to classical literature through Homer's Iliad. I'm excited to see how they take to it, as all of them are so eager for new horizons. Mom and I are also looking foward to joining a nearby Zumba and Spinning Studio! Please, pray that all these great aspirations are as the Lord intends:) I hope and pray that your aspirations are as you intend in the New Year as well. ~j.
p.s. the blog now has a feature in the top right section where you can follow my entries by simply submitting your email. I hope you do as this is my way of feeling connected to so many of you back home.
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| Wyatt flying a kite near El Morro Fort in Old San Juan |
*****AMY HAMBRIGHT! If you are viewing this blog, please send me an email. I have had 2 broken phones since being here and lost all contacts. I do not have your email either. You can leave me a comment through this blog, then I will have your email address. Wyatt is dying to skype the boys again!
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