I now have my package! I picked it up this morning. I got to the post office at 8:20 and of course the doors weren’t open yet, so I walked around the plaza for a few minutes. I stopped in front of this one store, just kind of looking through the window, trying to make the time pass and this guy came up behind me and was like “They’re not open so early in the morning; they open at ten.” Yes, thank you, I know, I’m just trying to waste a few minutes. He was nice…just trying to help. I went back a few minutes later and they were open. It took me about five minutes; I showed her my passport and then got my package! I brought it home, grabbed some recycling and off I was to school (the recycling bin is on the way).

I lost track of time and accidently spent the entire hour in Julia’s three-year-old class. She started off the day with the usual picking-of-the-new-helper and roll (is that how you spell it in this context?) call. That takes a little while when you’re working with three-year-olds, I’ve learned. I then told them a short Christmas story with six story cards and then Julia and I translated it into Spanish so they could actually understand it. Julia told me it was late, but I didn’t know how late it actually was until I got to Ángela’s class. She was like “oh, the hour’s over…I didn’t think you were coming, we have work time now”. Oops.

In 5A, I read them the little excerpt about Christmas from their textbooks and then talked about Christmas in the United States. They then corrected one of their workbook pages. For 1B, we were in the audiovisual room. We didn’t have a whole lot of time in there because we didn’t leave the classroom right away. Plus, neither Esperanza nor I knew how to connect the computer to the SmartBoard (it’s harder than it sounds!), so we were only able to sing “Merry Christmas” for the kids without the words and then I told them the same story I told to the three-year-olds…I wasn’t really prepared—I thought we were going to talk about Christmas with that class next week.

We rehearsed more for the festival during recreo. In the five years A class, I told them another Christmas story, one that went along with their book and then they did a short worksheet with stickers. In 6A, we were in the audiovisual classroom again and we learned the “Twelve Days of Christmas”. The internet NEVER works in there…so the singing was compliments of yours truly! Pilar was like “So-and-so wants to know if you knew this song before you came to Spain?” Seeing as how Christmas is pretty big in the US and the carol is an American/English one, yes, I knew it. Some kids…they’re just funny!

When I got home I opened my package…thanks again, mom and dad! I wasn’t expecting to see the chocolate stars, so I’m totally making those rockin’ cookies this weekend! Everyone who tried it said they loved the Soda Cracker Toffee, so I hope they’ll love these too! I’m going to take the candy and kool-aid to school tomorrow for everyone to try…that’ll give ‘em a little taste of Nebraska!

Xoxo,

Court