This was the week leading up to Christmas, and also the last week at work until January 3rd when our office reopens after the holiday. So while I still worked Monday through Thursday (Friday the 23rd was already a day off), there was a semi-holiday feel to the week already.
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I start with a photo of the rising sun on the shortest day of the year, taken while out on my pre-work bike ride:
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As always when photographing a sunrise or sunset, I turned around to see the buildings and the beach illuminated by the low sun:
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The European School of Alicante, from which my daughter graduated in 2012, has a parents’ choir in which my wife has been singing for several years, and has continued to do so even though we are no longer parents of a student at the school. They give a Christmas concert every year, and this year it was held in the most important church in Alicante, the Basílica de Santa María. The church was full, and it was a beautiful setting for the performance:
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The leader of the choir no longer uses paper for her sheet music:
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Most of the singers in the choir are women, so they are always on the lookout for new male recruits, and cherish the male voices that they do have:
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Esteemed Wife in action:
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Afterwards, we walked back to the parking, enjoying the brightly lit streets around Alicante’s city hall:
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Thursday was our last working day in 2022, so of course those of us who were not already on holiday got together for some munchies and drinks:
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Tamara and I were the only people who had proper Christmassy attire:
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A couple of “found” images from my neighbourhood. Alicante lightpoles are usually plastered with advertisements for various services, often homemade. The war in Ukraine is now visible also in this sphere. Here, a construction company claims to be supporting Ukraine:
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And here, a Ukrainian handyman offers his services, although funny enough, the text is in Russian rather than Ukrainian:
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Once more, a cute dog in the supermarket vestibule:
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On Saturday, I started the day with the usual bike ride, this time with a stop in Verdegás where the usual assortment of kitties greeted me:
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These cats live all over the village, but especially around the small church, where people leave food and water for them:
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Then it was Christmas Eve. For the first time in our marriage (39 years), we were alone. Our son lives in New Jersey, and our daughter was spending the holidays with her boyfriend and his family in another city. Still, my wife insisted on maintaining the various traditions, and so we started the evening with a Christmas selfie:
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Then the Christmas dinner, starting with gravad laks, reflecting my Scandinavian heritage:
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And continuing with roast duck with potatoes, apples and shallots:
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Some food from earlier in the week, one of my favourites, grilled shrimp and green beans with spicy Gochujang sauce:
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Christmas morning. Again, on my wife’s insistence, we posed for a selfie in our attire and then exchanged presents:
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And then I went on my bike ride, this time up the coast to Villajoyosa. There were many people enjoying the sunshine on the promenade:
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And everyone seemed to have their dogs accompanying them:
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A few people were enjoying the beach too:
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Back home, in the afternoon this cat appeared in our garden. We first thought that he was a stray, but he was well kept and not afraid of humans, so we concluded that he was a neighbourhood cat on a walkabout (and we found out later that we were right):
