8 days...

Today was a pretty lazy day. This weekend is supposed to be all study study study. I ended up staying up pretty late watching a movie and slept in today. I then had to run some errands and go pick up a new mic for Skype because mine decided it didn't want to work my last week here! BOO! haha! But now I am sitting down to try and starting working on my work for finals next week. I have an extra credit project I need to write up.

But the interesting fact for today is....
So this is what I was talking about that my teacher told us about yesterday. It is a log that "appears" on the doorstep of Catalan children around this time every year before Christmas. The children are told that the log is alive and have to leave food out for it every day. Then when the children arent around the parents eat the food and leave parts to make it look like the log ate the food. Christmas morning comes and the children hit the log with a stick and sing a Christmas song. They then lift the blanket but nothing is under it. The parents have the children go in the other room and pray and put presents under the blanket to make it look like the log pooped the presents out. The child comes back and hits the log and sings the song and there are presents. They do this a few times and when all the presents are gone the behind the log is a black candy that looks like coal and it means that is everything.

My teacher explained that he thought they did this because it originated in farm lands and it taught Children about feeding the animal (leaving food for the log), killing the animal (beating it with a stick) and then eating and using the rewards that the animal produced (the candy and presents). KINDA WEIRD IF YA ASK ME! hahaha! But there is a Spanish/ Catalan tradition for you!

for more info :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB_N7-HXTlI