New Years Eve

Marga's family alternates getting everyone together on Christmas or New Years Eve; this year the big family dinner was on New Years Eve. Remember these beauties? We ate one on New Years Eve. You may note a particularly turkey-heavy theme to this post. I was a little worried that I might have to witness the slaughter (and be forced to make a Sarah Palin interview parody video), but I didn't.

Wine and anchovies and other foodstuffs ready for consumption.

Advertising DVDs on apples? What? (You'll see where this apple goes later.)

The patient hits the operating table.

After stuffing it with ground beef, raisins and prunes, Marga's veterinary skills kicked in and she sewed up the patient.

Marga veterinarianing.

100 cc's of sherry! STAT!

Loading the sherry syringe.

Sometimes the sherry would come shooting back out of the hole. Eventually the needle got blocked and I was sent out to the on-call pharmacy (there's always one pharmacy in each town that is open, even on holidays) to buy a new needle. Dialog in the pharmacy:

Erik: I need some syringe needles! Pharmacist: What for? Erik: For a turkey. Pharmacist: Is it sick? Erik: For eating. Pharmacist: For feeding? Erik: Not feeding the turkey. To fill it with wine to cook it. Pharmacist: Oooh! Tasty! Here, have these vet needles. They're the biggest we've got.

Hey, there's that apple!

Four hours in the tanning salon. Crispy!

Sucking juices from the pan.

My father-in-law and his father-in-law.

Aunts Manoli and Inés.

Cousins Gorka, Rubén, Ion, and Maikel.

Uncle Ramón snoozes between courses.

A panorama of the whole table, segregated by gender. Mainly so the men don't have to make the endless trips to the kitchen, I think.

Let the turkey carving begin!

Uncle Antonio does the honors.

Carnivore Ramón goes at it.

Dessert preparation begins: pineapple, peaches, ice cream, flan, and whipped cream.

It's called a pijama.

My New Years grape ration. My longtime readers will know that the main Spanish tradition for New Years Eve is grape eating. Actually, the tradition is exactly 100 years old this year. Very clever marketing by the grape farmers. The object is to eat one grape for every chime of the clock in Madrid, which everyone tunes to on their televisions.

Alcohol + Stickers + Camera = Shame

Grandpa and me.

Grapes counted (there's one out of frame). Wedding ring in champagne glass. It's important for good luck to have some gold in your champagne.

I tried to convince Uncle Antonio that, for good luck, he should wear this on his head for the entire year of 2009.

I've made a video of what happens when the year changes in Spain. According to my book about body language, it is very common for people to perform greeting and parting rituals (kissing, hugging, handshaking, etc.) when a "state change" is perceived, be it a coming of age, a birthday, or the change in the calendar year. Hence all the kissing...

Notice Aunt-to-be Belén wishing Nora a happy new year in Basque.

New Years Eve still life.

Uh oh, who broke out the gin?

To welcome in the new year, we got together with a member of my illustrious blogroll. The last time I met someone through my blog was in San Fermin 2008. In the wee hours of 2009, I met Sharon, the Australian woman I'd seen once.

Not surprisingly, she's already blogged about it. The other gentleman in the photo is the man who Sharon refers to as Husband-Acquired-By-Marriage. Pretty clever online pseudonym, in my opinion.

The morning after, the glass recycling bins were overflowing.

And the Vienna concert was great again this year. They even had some women in the orchestra for the first time ever.

Happy 2009 everybody!