It's Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas... and Hollywood.

So just as I'm sure any big city in the US will go all out with Christmas decorations, so it is with Madrid.  The holiday season seems to start at the same time as in the United States, right after Thanksgiving, even though Turkey Day is not celebrated here.  A lot of my kids were fascinated with the idea of Thanksgiving and in some of my classes I even gave short presentations and the teachers provided handouts describing the "First Thanksgiving" with the pilgrims and Native Americans.  Which brings me to my next segment of..

HISTORIA
As I was explaining modern traditions of Thanksgiving to my kids, we segued into the origin of Thanksgiving and the story of Pilgrims and whatnot.  Whether you know or not, early American immigration primarily consisted of Europeans (many English at first) who suffered from religious persecution.  The Protestant Reformation was making its way across Europe and causing a sh*t storm of violent persecution and suppression on both sides of the religious equation.  In England, Protestantism and Catholicism duked it out for over half a century (see Henry VIII through Bloody Mary) until The Virgin Queen Elizabeth seemed to have a firm grip on England as a Protestant nation (at least during her reign).  All those Catholics who had "lost" the battle in England then either had to renounce their faith and swear to Protestantism or face the wrath of a new Protestant regime.  However, on the other side of the spectrum, some radical Protestants felt the Church of England had not gone far enough, and sought refuge in the Netherlands where the environment was a little more accommodating.  From the Netherlands the "Pilgrims" crossed the Atlantic (Hey Mayflower!) and headed toward the new Plymouth colony near Cape Cod.  The first recorded Thanksgiving traditions trace back to the Spanish in North America in the 16th century, but the Pilgrim First Thanksgiving was in 1621.  While it seems to be true that some Native Americans may have helped the Pilgrims collect food for their feast (a Patuxet Native American named Squanto was apparently able to communicate to the new settlers how to catch and grow food after being forced to learn English while enslaved in Europe), relations between the settlers and Native Americans were not exactly the best (see American History 1600 - present) so I can't imagine the cheery Indian/Pilgrim lovefest story actually holds true.  NEEDLESS TO SAY, the kids in my class were in for a treat when it came to the story of Thanksgiving.   END HISTORIA

Spain has its own variety of once-proud-imperial-conquests-turned-evil-colonial-barbarianism which I will probably talk about later on, but seeing as how Thanksgiving was on everyone's mind, I'll save that for another day.  Ok after that windy digression I'll get to my Holiday point.  Madrid looks awesome!  Many of the streets have lights dangling from above decorated with various holiday figures..

And right in the center of Sol is a giant illuminated Christmas Tree!

Props to the guy who put the Star up there.

And what I especially love about coming home every day is the North Pole Village set up right next to my apartment.  Here they have tiny tiendas selling various items from gloves and scarves to jewelry to a marionette of Pinocchio!

Just hailing a taxi after a long day.

Now while this Santa's Village is pretty awesome, what is slightly terrifying are the half-sober characters walking around Sol trying to take pictures with tourists for money.  I immediately was reminded of Hollywood Blvd. with all its glorious characters roaming the streets.  Here in Sol there was an overweight Spiderman whose costume couldn't fit over his stomach, Mickey Mouse absentmindedly twirling dangerously close to a fountain, and a few other of my favorites..

I'm not sure why it was necessary to be levitating..

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