All Wrapped Up

As you can see from the photo, I have all my Christmas packages wrapped and ready to give to Alejandro's family on Christmas Eve.

In Mexico, the traditional day for giving gifts is January 6th, when the Three Kings deliver presents.  However, as gringo traditions such as Christmas trees and Santa Claus and the general commercialization of the holiday, made their way south of the border, gift-giving on Christmas became common for many families here.  Often, they are opened after returning from midnight mass on Christmas Eve.  However, Alejandro's father is not likely to stay awake until midnight, so we will probably open gifts after our Christmas Eve dinner.

I told you about my quest for gift boxes in an earlier post.  Well, after buying still MORE presents at the street market last weekend, I had to buy more boxes.  I also needed to buy ribbons and bows.  After buying the boxes, I was planning on dropping them off at the apartment, and then making another trip to a different part of town to buy the ribbons and bows at a fabric store called "Parisina".  However, as I was walking back to the Metrobus, I passed a craft store called "Fantasías Miguel".   My readers from the Cleveland area, may remember a chain of arts and crafts stores that we used to have called "Pat Catans".  This is similar but MUCH bigger.  I went inside and asked if they had ribbons and bows.  The employee told me they were upstairs.  There I found two long aisles with nothing but ribbons sorted by colors, and another aisle with bows.

I returned to the apartment with my supplies, and over the next two days, I finished the wrapping of the gifts.  Now, I just hope that they all fit into Alejandro's car!