Saturday, February 01, 2014

Christmas at Playa Celestun

We are pretty good at keeping Christmas simple here. I love the month of constant parties and good food, but as far as doing gifts for the kids goes--we keep it really spartan. This year we were extra spartan (MSU fans will find that to be especially funny).

We didn't bring any Christmas decorations with us (except for four ornaments I'd made right before leaving). With all the other details to take care of with moving, I just forgot. Stockings are hard to come by around here, so I decided to make some. The kids loved choosing their own fabric. Other than that, we bought the cheapest tree we could find and one string of lights.


Mateo loves checking out his own ornament

Sunday before Christmas with my barefoot girls 


We love having our Noche Buena feast on the 24th followed by the nativity play and then having a relaxing day on Christmas. Usually we have friends join us, but the people we invited couldn't come, so it was just us.

Noche Buena feast as simple as it gets: lentils and tortillas, fresh bread with honey and butter, cheese and jamaica

Santa filled the stockings with Mexican goodies and also left FIVE FRESH PINEAPPLES!!


My heart's desire was to go to the beach after the kids went through their stockings. I wanted to get some shells to decorate the tree, and I wanted to feel that yummy sand between my toes and smell the salty air. We were told that Celestun was a great beach for shells, so that's where we went. It was breezy and cool so we didn't stay in the water long, but we loved walking up and down the beach feeling the frothy water lick our toes. The shelling was great! I loved seeing my little people exclaim over their shells--seeing myself in them is so fun!

Playa Celestun

Love this photo

Collecting shells


The kids drew names for gifts for each other this year and spent their pesos at "Tienda de Mami" ("Mami's Store") because taking each one shopping would've been too complicated. It worked out surprisingly well. I need to restock and reopen "Tienda de Mami" again soon! We let them exchange gifts that night after we returned from the beach.

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