Merry Christmas to all

Christmas in colombia has lost none of it's
religiousness, I think if you tried to say
merry xmas you'd be met with a blank stare.

Every day for the nine days before christmas
almost every house and office in the country
celebrates a Novena (ninth), where in the states
lawyers would be parachuting gleefully out of the
sky if every company was holding a religious service
for 9 days. The novena includes some kind of food,
buenelos(fried bread) with chocalate, or Natilla (pudding?),
and today my part of the company bought lunch, so we had
the traditional Lechona (pig stuffed with rice, not bad)

The novena also uses the same prayers
every year, with each verse of the prayer followed by
verses of the song "Ven VenVen", repeated enough until even
the gringos can sing along. It reminds of my catholic youth and
how my 11 year old self wouldn't be able to pick my 40 year old
self out of a linup.

Here's the Nativity scene from the office:




















(called a Pesebre in spanish) I loved the two sheep in the
forground standing at the well, with looks that say,
"where's the water, how do we work a crank?"

Oh well, we're off to travel for the 4 day weekend.
Merry christmas to all, and to all a good night!