Christmas in Madrid, part four [navidad en Madrid, separése cuatro]

(I wrote this a week ago but forgot to post it!)...

BetterArf is in the middle of an effective four-day weekend (Thursday was a public holiday, and then she had a 'puerte' or bridging day, and now it's Saturday). So on Thursday we visited the Plaza Mayor Christmas Market. It was pretty busy. I expressed admiration for a Santa hat that I saw someone wearing, and before I knew it she had bought me one. It's a red cap with white fur edging and a red conical spiral spring with a bobble on the end - very tasteful. She also got herself a white furry halo. When we left the market and ventured into other parts of town where the Christmas spirit was a bit less evident, we were greeted by smiles and smirks from many of the grown-ups, and cries of '¡mira, Papa Noel!' from quite lot of the kiddiewinkles. Spanish kids really can pronounce that upside-down exclamation mark, by the way.


Papa Noel and his angel companion had a great time just walking all over Madrid. At the Palace of Telecommunications (head Post Office, also known as 'Our Lady of Telecommunications' because of its resemblance to quite a large cathedral) we saw quite a long queue - at least half an hour's worth, according to the signs, and went to investigate what they were queueing for. It turned out to be a very large and detailed Beléne - nativity scene. Folks were prepared to wait in line for over half an hour to get a good look, and most of them didn't have kids!


Yesterday BetterArf very kindly retrieved our trunk full of Christmas stuff from the trastero (storage room). Naturally it was at the back, at the bottom, so everything else had to be moved to get at it. But I now have my famous Christmas compilation album, and so I am a happy bunny.