Nativities and Other Traditions (This is as Decorated as We Get)

Neither Tim nor Quinn was particularly excited about decorating for Christmas this year.  Quinn's thinking is that since we will be at her grandparents' (Nana and Papa's) house for Christmas itself, _that_ is where "the tree" and all the accoutrements belong.  And the truth is, we're going to California early enough that it's possibly before the time when we would normally even get our decorations up.

One limiting factor here is that in Nicaragua, there's still another big holiday before Christmas.  La Purissima is the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception.  The night before is La Griteria, which Tim and I like to call the Nicaraguan Super Holiday.  So, most people who have lights up at this point have them up as part of a shrine to Mary.  And, we don't want to mislead the singing hordes into thinking we have a statue to sing to or treats to offer...

And somehow, we don't really have a good spot for our little tree, certainly not one that I'm confident Maya can't reach.  So, we're minimal on the decorations this year.  Since I was the only one who seemed excited about it, I decided what "minimal level decorating" would be for me.  It turns out that it is this: put out the two non-breakable nativities and the (extremely plain) Advent Wreath on the table.  Since I still haven't gotten candles for this wreath, I'll try to get a picture for a later post.

I may have inherited from my mother a love of nativity scenes that is considered excessive by certain family members.  (Little do they know how restrained I have been... we only really have three, well, kind of four, but three here in Nicaragua.  And one is tiny and just has the Holy Family.)  

The one in this photo is actually Quinn's very own nativity scene, and you can see that it has already been well-loved.  I am hoping that Maya will enjoy it this year nearly as much as Quinn has in the past. Only time will tell if she, too, will feel the need to potty train the baby Jesus.