During the Christmas Season, we enjoy visiting various shopping malls throughout the city to see the holiday decorations. Although the decor seems to go up earlier each year, we usually don’t get to break away from teaching and administrative demands until later in December. This year’s visits to shopping malls started with an afternoon outing to a new (to us!) mall – in Las Piedras.
Yesterday we visited one of our favorites – Punta Carretas – near Montevideo’s southernmost tip. Part of the fun for our family is noting how much the decor theme varies from year to year...
Can you guess this year’s theme from the pictures?!
Although December marks the beginning of summer here in this part of the southern hemisphere, snow is a favorite holiday theme – most likely rooted in Uruguay’s Spanish and Italian heritage.
Hourly “snowfalls” in this shopping mall consistently draw crowds!
The three “Reyes Magos” have been another traditional aspect of Uruguay’s celebration of Christmas.
E and DJ enjoyed talking to them – in both Spanish and English! They also found out that “Baltasar” speaks French! J
Rain showers were in the afternoon forecast but, seeing a patch of blue sky, we decided to walk the couple of blocks down to the coast to try to catch glimpses of the sunset. We were not disappointed!
We even saw rainbows!
I 💙 my family!
We ended the evening of the Third Day of Christmas (or should I be saying Second?!) with Hot Chocolate and Candy Canes – which E had discovered in with our own Christmas decorations in the closet!
“¡Feliz Navidad!”
