Christmas away from home

Dancing the night away
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And so this isChristmas....Greetings everyone...Yes, we had a wonderful experience this christmas. We accepted Manny's invitation to join him and his family Christmas eve. He worked late so we we arrived at his brother Ivan's house at around 10:00. His brother lives in a beautiful house in a somewhat posh neighbourhood. When we arrived everyone was in the kitchen helping with the food preparation.  After introductions and the first round of many many drinks, Manny's sister whom we had met earlier sadly informed us that the fish that Manny had so kindly obtained for us smelled fishy,(  no pun intended) and her advise was to chuck it.  We agreed that the snappers may have incured an untimely decomposition while travelling in the car with us that very afternoon.  Perhaps they did indeed receive too large a dose of sunshine and they now should rest in peace lol.  It was nice that Manny went to all this trouble but it really did not matter to us.  We had already decided that we would adopt the "while in Rome" attitude this Christmas and eat whatever was being served and be grateful.  Turned out that our host had purchased a medium size pig for the occasion and the smell that emanated from this well seasonned and trimmed porcelet would have enticed even the most dedicated of Rabbis to partake in this succulent feast.  And so much love was put into the preparation of this meal that you just knew that had the poor pig been given the choice he would have voluntarily sacrificed himself for the occasion.  So without to much thought about how my body was going to react I accepted a piece of this offering. I turned to Ian who by now had a mouthful and received an enthusiastic Wow..compliments were given and our hosts seemed very glad that we approved wholeheartedly of their culinary skills.  Dinner over with it was time for the gift opening but beforehand everyone had to hold hands and sing happy christmas carols and the hosts welcomed everyone and thanked them all for coming.

Desparado...Manny waiting for a worthy opponent
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After gift giving the stereo blared beautiful Bolivian music and everyone started warming up the ceramic tiles in the beautiful foyer and some never sat down once the entire time we were there.  And I am ashamed to say some were older than us.  We met people from Argentina and Peru at the party as well and they liked to dance too.  Once in a while someone would throw heavy pot lids on the floor, stop the music and whoever was left dancing on the floor had to entertwine arms and drink this concoction made by none other than our friend Manny who quite enjoyed making sure you drank it all quick.  Then the music would resume at a much faster speed and you had to keep up to the beat. It did not seem to be a big problem for them but I feared the worst.  People kept arriving at the party some arrived at 3:30. Ian and I looked at each other bewildered until someone would grab us back onto the floor.  Finaly, at 5:30 we begged Manny to go home. He had the flu and was'nt feeling well so he did not mind thank god...But the next day, we both did not feel too bad. It must have been all the food and dancing that helped clear the alcool from our system. We went to the beach on Christmas day and it was very crowded but it was fun none-the-less.  We talked about how lucky we were to experience a different kind of Christmas celebration thanks to our friend Joni who introduced us to our now established friend Manny. Many thanks and good wishes to all of you in the new year.

Manny's sister in law Victoria encouraging us to keep dancing.
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Sincerely,

Rose and Ian