Merry effing Christmas

You'll have to excuse my lack of enthusiasm this holiday season due to the fact that not only am I miles and miles away from my friends and family but I'm also quite under the weather. Due to the job I have, I'm constantly enveloped in the germs of little kids, in this instance 3 little girls who all have some kind of a cold. This includes coughing (without covering their mouths), sneezing (with over-flowing boogers), and fevers (that have thankfully gone down in the past 3 days). But now that they're all getting better it's our turn, as in the parents and myself to feel like crap.

Here in Barcelona/Catalunya Christmas is celebrated later, the 6th of January to be exact. The specific reasons as to why, I'm not very sure, and if I looked it up I know I'd find the reason, but to be honest, I don't feel like it! The family I'm with will be celebrating this holiday quite a bit and I'm super confused as to where we'll be, who we'll be with and what we'll be doing.

I'm usually really excited about the holidays, making ornaments and decorations, baking like a madwoman, buying unnecessary presents for everyone and anyone I can think of, but this year it's the complete opposite. I have no interest in shopping, because everything is way too expensive, and I have no idea what to get anyone! My parents, I find, are the hardest people to buy for, mostly because I don't want to get them some shitty gift, send it over the Atlantic, and then have them not like it. So, I figure if I just start collecting gifts for them (and my brothers) now, by the time I get back home all the gifts I'll have for them will make up for not sending any throughout the year. Plus, that way I don't have to spend tons of euros on sending the package!

The Catalans seem to have a few strange traditions here, but more of that will come later, regarding Christmas, on pretty much every Nativity scene the inclusion of a character tucked away in a little corner is the Caganer, translated to mean 'the shitter' or 'the pooper'. Most of the little characters are dressed in typical Catalunyan garb consisting of a large black sash and red sock hat, but some that have become quite popular are Caganers that are made in the resemblance of celebreties or politicians.



Among some of the reasons why the Catalans include this man in the Nativity scene are tradition, humour, feces is considered like fertilizing the Earth, and that the caganer reinforces the idea that the baby Jesus is God in human form, which implies everything that a human is and does.

I mostly like him 'cause he's bent over, pants at his knees with a little pile of shit under his butt!