Here’s my last-minute “to do” list before I leave today for Mexico to spend the Christmas and New Year’s holidays in Querétaro—this is where my daughter-in-law’s family lives and where my grandson, Andrés, will be baptized on December 30th.

I am looking forward to taking in as much of the Mexican culture and Christmas traditions as I can and will hopefully be blogging as I go, barring unforeseen difficulties with Wi-Fi. You can read my previous post about Querétaro churches here.

1. Host party for residents of my condo floor, including preparing all the food and cleaning up the kitchen. (Go back and read my post on how this Christmas party tradition started: “It started with the St. John Passion“.) This year’s party was on Sunday, and was the first time I virtually did this singlehandedly! It distracted me sufficiently so that I forgot to take pictures of all the main courses and dessert. In addition to the pupus shown in the slideshow, I made apricot-glazed chicken (Martha Stewart’s recipe), rice pilaf, sugar snap peas and for dessert, blueberry clafoutis. While we didn’t have as many people as in previous years, we all had a wonderful time. Check!
2. Write my annual Crosier Chronicle and mail out Christmas cards to those without email. Click Crosier Chronicle to view the PDF. Check!
3. Do some last-minute “cramming” of my three online Spanish classes. It has been a year already that I decided that in order to stave off Alzheimer’s and dementia, I should 1) learn a new language 2) learn Spanish so that I can communicate with my baby grandson! I’ve even learned how to trill my Rs! (My daughter-in-law’s parents are learning English, so the learning is going both ways!) The hope is that Andrés will be bi-lingual.

Which reminds me last year’s Christmas commercial, as shown in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6jdakVLl6c&feature=youtu.be

Feliz Navidad! See you in Mexico!