Santa Clause - Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009

We woke up with an agenda and goal for the day. This would be the last time we would have to go exploring and complete any shopping for Christmas. We are buying some things to give our office elders for Christmas. They haven't received a package from home yet. Don't know that they will. In fact, we have 46 Latin missionaries that have not received anything for Christmas. Sad!

Then we had to clean our apartment in preparation for Elder Davis to be with us tomorrow and each evening next week as he recuperates from surgery. He will stay at the office with all of us during the day and then come to our place until the elders pick him up around 8:30. We won't be able to leave him to shop or do any errands, so everything we have to do in preparation for the holiday needs to be done today.

We would have to pick the day to shop with 100% humidity. Oh my gosh!! It was a sauna outside. We walked up Constitución to try to find a mens store that sold ties. An elder can always use another tie. That was the last thing we had to find for our gift package. After stopping at three stores with not much of a selection, we found a gold mine. They had all colors and patterns, and the price was right. We were so relieved, and grateful for an answer to our morning prayer that we would be successful in the least amount of time. We made our selections and continued on up the street to find me a gift of necessity.

While cutting Rich's hair last night, I dropped the hair clippers onto our hard tile floor. It cracked the casing and, of course, messed up the cutting edges. They were toast. The funny, but sad, thing is that I have done that to two other clippers -- one a Wahl brand, and the other an Argentine brand. They just "jump" right out of my hands. Rich said that we should buy three set of clippers, because we have bought three in 9 months and we have 9 months to go. Good thing they only cost about $18 dollars. In the states they are more, I'm sure. I will wrap them up to open on Christmas morning.

We finally found a Santa. This is as good as it gets for a Santa Clause in Argentina, or at least in San Fernando. As we approached the busy part of the shopping area, they had blocked off the street to cars and made it for pedestrians only. That was a good move because the sidewalks could not handle the amount of busy shoppers.

We don't know how Mickey fits in with Christmas in his U.S. patriotic attire, but he was greeting the kids along with Santa. Couldn't miss this photo opportunity!!

We found this display of Santa suits and other items interesting. They were just hanging from the entry way approaching the store. Two or three different styles of suits were available. We determined that the reason we don't see people dressed up like Santa Clause is because they would die of heat exhaustion. When we would stop at a store to look at something, the sweat would just trickle down our faces. It was a good thing I had some kleenexes in my purse because we used almost the whole pack.

On the way back down Constitución, we found a meat market that had some decent looking hamburger, so we decided to try some. We usually make a train trip to Acassuso to buy our meat at the place Sister Argyle shops. We would like to find a place closer. Maybe this is it.

We returned home around 1:00 dripping wet. This was our first experience with really humid weather and are not looking forward to the next two or three months.

We made another good decision today by going shopping in the morning instead of waiting until the afternoon. Boy, are we glad we did! Rain was predicted for the afternoon and about fifteen minutes after we returned, the heavens opened. It rained most of the afternoon and it would have been impossible for us to go out in it to complete our shopping. We were so grateful how things worked out.

We spent the afternoon cleaning the apartment and making spaghetti sauce for dinner tomorrow. We also worked on our Christmas letter we are sending out this week. It's been a good day.