How Christmas Blew Up in Piso 4A

Season's greetings everyone! It has been a long time, the reason being we've been out and about, we've been a little lazy, but mostly we've been consumed with holiday spirit. After Thanksgiving, Ally and I were both feeling a little homesick and missing our families during. Hence, we came up with the greatest idea ever!!!! Piso decorations, thinking it would be the greatest thing ever. The funny thing about christmas decorations is that I'm buddhist, and Ally is not religious, and hence we have two people who really don't celebrate christmas for religious reasons decorating the piso. However, I love the holiday spirit, and Christmas carols, they put me in a good mood, and remind me of being home with my family. Hence, we decided this would be the best way to make us feel more at home. Little did we know it would become a big obsession and consume about two weeks of our lives. But I guess when you're in Huelva, where the extracurricular activities are limited, holiday decorations are a great way to pass the time.

Ally and I started simple with snowflakes and hand made signs. She worked on the "Happy Holiday" sign that you see as you walk into the piso, and together we spent 8 hours cutting out over 60 snowflakes. Then we hung them off the ceiling, which also was a little dangerous, but worth the effort. Once you step into the piso, the ceiling is quite amazing. Snowflakes and "Happy Holidays" made up Phase 1 of Operation decoration.

Phase 2 of our operation was putting up the tree and the fireplace. Putting the tree up with the star, and Ally strung the lights onto the tree. It was almost life-like. I was in charge of the fireplace, and it was something we needed desperately, because our piso is ridiculously cold. Although it looks like it didn't take a long time it did. I spent the most time on the fireplace, with 3 stockings, one for me (Merchi), one for Ally (Carmen), and one for Ally's mom (Marcia) -- she's visiting us soon. Doing the garland at the top of the fireplace was time consuming because it is actually single pieces of leaves cut out of green wrapping paper. However, in the end it was worth the 2-3 days i spent on it.

Phase 3 was "Noel", "Santa Claus", the wreath for the door, and mistletoe. Cutting the candles, out of red wrapping paper and making the holly for it was also time consuming, but very easy, and that was quickly finished. Ally contributed with her skillful lettering skills and we're very pleased with the results. The wreath on the door was made quickly because we had green wrapping paper. Although the mistletoe is not real, and the chances of us finding anyone to stand under it with are very slim... we are holding out for el Duque, Enrique Iglesias or any other tall dark and handsome Spanish man to enter our piso. Lastly, Santa Claus was a tough task because I had to draw him out of paper and put him together. It took aat least 5 hours, however there were some breaks for "Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso".

After a weekend break from decorating to go to Lisbon, we returned to do Phase 4 of our operation. By this time we are a little decorationed out because I personally had spent at least 8 hours a day on decorating for 4 days in a row. Either way we had to carry on, because we could not leave it unfinished. Phase 4 consisted of creating the north pole. I made the sign, the sled and also the snowflakes that covered the walls. Ally make the life-size Frosty the Snowman which I think turned out incredible.

Phase 5 was just finishing up the final touches. We spent the last few days making presents to put under the tree, putting up snow underneath various things to make it look like snow in the north pole. Ally put up the "Merry Christmas" sign. I wrapped one of our poles in gold and silver wrapping and topped it off with big bows. Our last day we worked on ornaments for the tree. Ally made the color balls on the edges and I made some ornaments that reminded us of all the places we've traveled together ie.: Barcelona, Paris, Granada, Lagos, Lisbon... Everytime we look at the tree, it will remind us of the great friendship we have, and the many fond memories we have built, but we look forward to building more for the rest of this adventure.

As I bring this informative post to an end, I hope everyone is going super duper well. I wished everyone could be here to see our piso and how great it turned out, but most of all, I wished everyone was here to just celebrate the holiday spirit with us.

Hugs and Kisses,
Ngoc :)



P.S. You can look at the entire process here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2353854&l=feced&id=10703715