[X] My Assistant

[ustrax]

This is really a topic that has nothing to do with Unmanned Spaceflight, or maybe we can find some links to it...

The question is more to see how we celebrate Christmas to see the differences between our national and local traditions.

Where do you, how do you, with who do you celebrate Christmas?
Any place for space in there?

I'll spend mine at my sister's home (the biggest of all) in Queluz, the city where I lived untill left my parents house, it's an opportunity to review old friends, smells and places, to walk through the palace gardens with my nephews...
The Christmas evening starts in the afternoon when everybody starts gathering, my sister, brother-in-law, nephews, my parents, my b-i-l dad and sister, me, my woman, my dog, my sister's dog...
This year there will be no grandparents, one died in August and the other is in the hospital and not very well and no one could convince my grandmother to gather for Christmas...I hope things get really better for 2007, that's one of my strongest wishes...
We eat a lot, as everyone, before dinner, talk a lot, laugh a lot, discuss a lot (we're latins you know...), watch all the classics, and for dinner the tradition is to eat this great codfish with tons of vegetables and potatoes and egg, all drowned in massive doses of olive oil...
Then the indispensable coffee with digestive and more talk, and more digestive, and more food.
At midnight we go to the church's ceremony in the middle of the cold with the kids protesting and, finally, in the return, we open the presents (there will be some Hawking book for me, and socks too...) and drink and eat and sing some songs...
Now it is time to each return to their houses, to have some sleep to gather again in the morning after with the kids displaying their new toys and clothes.
Everyone smells nice and we visit other relatives to...eat! This time lamb...
That's it...Untill we meet all again for King's Day (January, 6th) to eat King's Cake...
The New Year will be in the North of Portugal, in the Minho region, but that's another story...
Man...I'm hungry!...

[DFinfrock]

ustrax:

I do have a small "space link" to this year's Christmas celebration.

My father died of heart failure in January 1999, while undergoing a dialysis treatment. I was with him at the time, and in the moments before he died, we were enjoying a National Geographic book on Mars, featuring some of the Pathfinder photos. Since he was a geologist, (and didn't have internet access) he really enjoyed the photos in the book I had given him for Christmas the week before.

Since his death, my four siblings and I keep him in our Christmas celebrations each year by joining together and making a donation each Christmas to a charity in his name. This year it was my turn. I chose a donation to a nearby nature preserve of the Audubon Society, because of his love of the outdoors. And I also made a donation to the Planetary Society, and added his name to those destined to travel to Mars on the Phoenix lander next year. My mother, brother and sisters were thrilled by the printed certificate from TPS identifying "Papa Frock" as one whose name will travel to Mars.

Merry Christmas!

David