Feliz Navidad! (aka My Crazy Macau Christmas)

I want to begin today's blog with this classic and most danceable of all the Christmas songs.  I really like Feliz Navidad, and I'm happy to say that Macau does too.  (I'm guessing it's because of the Portuguese?)   Anyway, it's fun and I appreciated hearing it at the end of mass tonight!


But first, yesterday.  Yesterday was another mostly boring day of errands and hanging out.  Only two things of consequence happened.  The first was that I got the paperwork I needed to be allowed to ride a scooter in Macau.  Yay!  Something to look forward to next week!

The other thing was that I tried to make clam chowder and failed.  Badly.  Seemed easy enough - it was a recipe I've used before and, although it took me ages to find frozen clams since there are no canned ones, I did find them and they seemed fine.  When I added the water though, it didn't seem like nearly enough and I should have trusted that instinct because about 10 minutes before it was supposed to be done simmering I smelled something bad which turned out to be burning clams, potatoes, and green onions.  Alas.  I will have to try again with the rest of the clams and pay closer attention.  Since we were starving, Beth and I just went next door for sushi as a backup.  It was really busy and so we got seated at the sushi bar right next to these crazy looking menu items.  Is that middle one wearing makeup?  Creepy!!!

Today was more fun.   I did some Skyping early on and then did a few errands while Beth had her Mandarin lesson.  I finally remembered to bring Christmas cookies and fudge down to the security guards.  I've been meaning to do it for ages and was glad that my favorite guy (I call him Henry) was there when I stopped down.  He only knows a couple phrases in English (he always says "good morning" to me) so we couldn't really communicate, but I recognized the Cantonese phrase for "thank you" which is "dotsay" and he kept saying something else.  When he realized I couldn't understand he came out of his little office and pointed at one of the hanging decorations that said "Merry Christmas".  So sweet. 

Later we started getting ready for Christmas Eve dinner.  I'm usually at my Grandparents' house for Christmas Eve, and we always have potato soup and venison sausage - so that's what I wanted to make.  Beth contributed one of our favorite Chinese items - bitter melon.  Here's a photo of her preparing one.  The middle is spongy and has seeds, so she's taking that part out.

Then she's filling it with pork!  We bought these little wheels of yum premade and cooked them at home recently and they were delish, but this time Beth chose to DIY!

After frying these bad boys, they tasted pretty great, even though the meat shrunk up in a funny way.   We decided in the spirit of the holidays that they were meatballs with halos.  Or hula hoops.

The soup turned out well - it also contains carrots, celery, onion, dill, sour cream and an egg.  Since I was obviously not going to find venison sausage, I tried linguiça, which is a Portuguese specialty.  It was quite good and actually fairly similar.  Nice and smokey!

 After dinner we got ready for midnight mass.  The priest said we should show up early if we wanted a seat so we left around 10:30 and walked.  Got there around 11 and this was going on:

I don't think it showed up well, but you wouldn't believe how many people had santa hats or headbands with antlers or light up horns or various other hats/head adornments and glowing toys.  So weird!  And these kids playing guitar were playing American songs like Mr. Big's "More than words" and "Kiss me" by Sixpence None the Richer.  Again, weird.

One of the traditional Christmas treats I've never tried is available around these parts - roasted chestnuts!  The vendors are right out on the street with their roasters.  (Not an open fire.)  Beth remembered that I wanted to try them, so she snuck off and got some while we waited for the church to open.  So nice.  They're quite good, but don't taste like nuts to me.  More like vegetables somehow.

Here's a better picture of them at home.

Finally at 11:30 they let us in and the seats filled instantly, so it was good we'd come so early and waited.  The church was pretty and the service was very nice - they had frankincense and good musicians who sang all my favorite Christmas songs.  It was kind of weird though, because the church is huge and right off a major tourist area, so there were a lot of people there as tourists, standing on the sides and talking and taking photos.  Kind of distracting, but I suppose it's not any different than when I go to the temples.  One guy, who appeared to actually be Catholic, had a laptop that he was aiming all over the place.  I thought he was just recording at first, but at one point he turned it so we could see the screen and realized he was videochatting someone and allowing them to attend virtually, I guess.  He even brought his friend to communion and just left the computer on the edge of the front pew.  So nuts.  Then we came home and got ready for bed.  We have to get up at a decent time tomorrow because Beth's dad is going to read us the Night Before Christmas - cajun style.  It's a tradition of theirs and it's happening at 8am our time, then I'm going to church with Beth to watch her sing in the Christmas choir.  Should be fun.

I sprung for this little (only 300 pieces) puzzle since Beth and I both like doing puzzles over the Christmas holiday.  It's a snowy scene with a horse-drawn sleigh.  And a rabbit and a fox and a polar bear.  I plan to work on it tomorrow while we're watching It's a Wonderful Life.

Let me just end with this treasure from my sister Becky.  She couldn't find an e-card she liked, so she sent this instead.  If you want to see what it's all about, just click the link below.

http://theuglydance.com/?v=azprzhssxe