Well during breakfast, 4 year old Lily announced that a parade was coming. I mean, it is a festive Sunday in the park, with balloons and soap bubbles and cotton candy and ladies in high heels, but a parade? Sure enough. The kid knew the signs.
It is the annual Bodegona Start of the Holiday Season Parade or some such thing. And such a tacky event cannot be described. The Bodegona is the very large supermarket place that is also sort of like, I guess, a Walmart? So marching bands were flanked by children dressed as laundry detergent and stick-it notes. Reindeer and cotton snow and kids in red Santa hats graced the passing floats. And at the end, deer Santa himself.
I’ve got to tell you, I must be pms’ing, because I actually got all gushy about Liana’s first Santa. Now the context was bizarre. And I did have quite a little debate with Celia a while back about the fact that I have no intentions of lying to Liana and telling her that there is a man who comes down chimneys and leaves nice presents for rich kids, and very little for poor kids. I will tell her that a long long time ago there was a nice man named Nicholas, who gave presents to the poor, and we celebrate his goodness by giving presents to each other, and people dress up like him to honor him.
It is the annual Bodegona Start of the Holiday Season Parade or some such thing. And such a tacky event cannot be described. The Bodegona is the very large supermarket place that is also sort of like, I guess, a Walmart? So marching bands were flanked by children dressed as laundry detergent and stick-it notes. Reindeer and cotton snow and kids in red Santa hats graced the passing floats. And at the end, deer Santa himself.
I’ve got to tell you, I must be pms’ing, because I actually got all gushy about Liana’s first Santa. Now the context was bizarre. And I did have quite a little debate with Celia a while back about the fact that I have no intentions of lying to Liana and telling her that there is a man who comes down chimneys and leaves nice presents for rich kids, and very little for poor kids. I will tell her that a long long time ago there was a nice man named Nicholas, who gave presents to the poor, and we celebrate his goodness by giving presents to each other, and people dress up like him to honor him.
But today, as a man in a white beard and ridiculously inappropriate red outfit rode by on a bed of cotton past the palm trees, I got sort of warm and fuzzy. Who knew?
The kids loved the parade, but I had to make my way through the crowd to find my favorite bathroom, because Liana was in desperate need of a diaper change. Afterwards we had planned to go hang out with the kids at a local hostel where they had advertised that they were showing the movie Shrek. It was a nice place. Dorm sleeping for backpackers, and $8 a night got you a clean bed, breakfast, free beer, and a really nice garden area with hammocks and high speed internet and a TV. Sadly, it appears that the Shrek video had disappeared, and so there was no show for the kids. But we played on the hammocks and talked to the travelers and I thought about the many times I had stayed in places like this, sharing stories with the adventurers… the real travelers who are wandering from one obscure place to another.
