Christmas time and elementary school in Spain

Some interesting happenings from school in the last couple of weeks before Christmas break.

1. Maeve learned her first thing all fall in English class this week. They made Christmas cards.  She made one for her Dad, and learned that you write merry with 2 R's.
2. Silas has learned a lot of Christmas carols.  The other night he sang "Mira como beben los peces en el rio", a traditional Christmas Carol, for about 30 minutes in the bath.
3. Silas came home yesterday with a cut-out, colored (his work), paper nativity scene.  The Belen, or nativity scene, is a big Christmas icon here.  Today we're looking for a shoe box to use as the stable.  I said it was for the wise men, and he corrected me, that it was the baby Jesus and Mary.  He doesn't quite have Joseph's name down in Spanish.
4. 2 weeks ago, Silas came home with 2 copies of the toy magazine from El Corte Ingles (the biggest department store here), that they gave out at school.  He got a copy for Maeve.  This is a la the Sears Wishbook from back in my day, handed out at school.  We got at least 2 good afternoons of hours of searching through the book and narrowing down choices for Santa and the 3 Kings - they both come here!
5. Last week, Silas came home from school with one copy of the toy magazine from another store.  
6. Maeve has decided that the reason the 3 Kings don't come to the United States is that they come on camels and can't cross the Atlantic Ocean.
7. On the last day of school before break, the pre-schoolers can come to school in costume.  Silas is asking around in his class if he can borrow one.  We got him a 3 kings hat and we'll see if  we can rig him up a gown.  I think that either Santa or one of the 3 Kings also comes to school that day.