CRA Chapter 23


Leaving for Orte


It must be said that the Sea Blue universal medicine was very effective. After Xie Luan drank it, he only needed to rest under the quilt for some hours and by evening, his fever was almost completely gone.

Along with it, most of the dizziness dispersed, and Xie Luan gradually started to come to his senses. At this time, he suddenly noticed a cold touch against his left cheek.

Noticing he was holding a cold object, Xie Luan instantly opened his eyes and shifted his gaze to the object in his arms.

What came into his view was a scale covered silver tail, similar to that of a dragon…

“…” It took a moment for his brain to register what it was and during this quiet moment, Xie Luan followed the object with his eyes, all the way from where it emerged from under the quilt, up to the slightly tilted tip parallel to his head.

The silver tail was obediently being held in his arms and appeared to in no way resist being treated like this.

His still fuzzy brain finally started questioning where the owner of the tail was. He dizzily scanned the room and then turned his head to look behind him.

Cyan eyes.

He was very close to the other person’s face and instantly came eye to eye with a pair of pale cyan eyes. Beautiful. They were as bright and clear as the winter sky. It was a very nice pair of eyes. They had a certain luster to them, and although it was not very distinct, it made one feel as if the owner of them was watching something very important.

Ya Yi did not divert his gaze and instead quietly met Xie Luan’s stare.

Xie Luan’s dizzy mind finally put the pieces together. While he was feverish, he must have been drawn to the silver tail and forcefully grabbed ahold of it in order to use it as an ice pack. With this realization, his mind at once became clear and he instantly let go of it.

Holding his hands up in front of him, Xie Luan felt slightly embarrassed. It would probably be good to explain himself.. but how?

As Xie Luan was struggling with this, he suddenly felt his left cheek being touched…

The other’s cheek was softly rubbing against his own.

Xie Luan had seen this action before, it was similar to what most cubs did in order to express closeness and dependence. However, the one doing it was undoubtedly in adult form, and suddenly having such an intimate action done to him made Xie Luan unconsciously tense up.

Seeing his reaction, Ya Yi momentarily paused. But after the initial response, Xie Luan did not reject it and let the adult nox rub his cheek.

It did not last long, he only gently rubbed his cheek twice. He then withdrew and positioned his head close to Xie Luan’s ear.

“Ah Luan.” He said this slowly. His low voice held a cold penetrative feeling, but the way he said it made one feel as if it had immense importance.

Ya Yi said these two words to the human youth in his arms.

It was his first words and he wanted him to hear them.

Not expecting that the other would suddenly say his name, Xie Luan was stunned. But before he had the chance to react, the adult nox behind him disappeared and a small white cub emerged from behind his back, promptly climbing into his arms.

“Meaah.” Snuggling into the youth’s embrace, the fluffy cub called out to him.

When faced with his cute cub form, Xie Luan lost all will to reject him, and he lifted his hand, not to push him off, but to reach out and feel the small horns on the nox cub’s head. After briefly playing with them, he then let his fingers follow the curve of the cub’s neck down to his back. His fluffy fur was very soft to the touch.

The nox cub, who was petted by the youth, made a low sound from his throat and the silky tail behind him immediately rose, the tip slightly tilted at the end.

The fever may have come suddenly but did not stay for long. After a day and night of resting, Xie Luan had almost completely recovered and as he still planned on going to the competition, he was busy organizing the three cubs’ flying practices.

Before he got sick, he had gone onto the starnet in order to search for anything related to the flying competition. While browsing through the information and tips, he found that if they wanted the cubs to get good positions in the competition, it was necessary to properly prepare them and practice in advance.

In order to add difficulty and make the competition more interesting, as well as thoroughly test the cubs’ flying abilities, the race track for the competition was not so simple as to be straight or only have a few curves, that would be too easy.

So, to not have their club’s cubs being completely unfamiliar with the track, Xie Luan carefully studied the videos from the past five years’ competitions.

The race course was different every year, but no matter how the course changed, there were things that remained the same, such as the way they calculated the score and the difficulty of the track.

Where the competition was held was selected by the ones in charge of organizing it for the year. Like ordinary races, the track had a start and a goal.

However, the ranking gained in the competition was not only based on when they arrived at the finish line, it was also based on the points the cub obtained while getting there.

So how was the score calculated?

Well, throughout the track, many circles made by something similar to golden mist could be found. Each time a cub flew through one of those golden rings, they would get a point.

However, the circles did not always stay put. They often abruptly disappeared after a cub had passed through them and sometimes they would pop up in tricky places, such as vertically above or a place that would require an instant turn.

The circles that suddenly disappeared and appeared in tricky places were actually the most difficult part of the competition and it was precisely this that Xie Luan wanted to prepare them for.

“Did you understand?” Xie Luan was holding the three cubs in his arms in front of them was the connector. It was playing a video of the contest that he had specially edited, and when it ended he lowered his head to ask them this.

The video he had made contained all the difficult situations that appeared in the previous year’s competition as well as the cubs who at that time had successfully handled it. Xie Luan had worked overtime last night in order to finish it.

“Tiuh!” The three cubs raised their head and responded in union.

“Then let’s practice together.” Xie Luan touched the cubs’ little heads and put them down on the grass in the courtyard.

He did not consider practicing before the competition to be immoral or unjust since it was something anyone could do.

At this year’s competition there would certainly be cubs who had participated before and were experienced in it. Because of this, Xie Luan felt that he needed to prepare their cubs and give them as much of an advantage as he could, he did not want them to lose before they even started.

Hearing the youth say that they were going to practice for the competition, the three cubs who were placed on the lawn, gathered their wings together and put on a very serious look. If it wasn’t for the fact that they were about to train, Xie Luan felt that he would not be able to stop himself from kneeling down to hug these three adorable creatures.

Still, his lips could not resist bending a little. Xie Luan had to put great effort into suppressing this reaction as he began to guide the cubs through the flying practice.

They mainly practiced sudden rises, rapid turns, abrupt changes, and so on. The daily practices continued for a week and soon the time for the flying competition at last arrived.

“Ah Luan, you should come back as early as possible, otherwise the cubs left behind will be troubled. If that happens, we won’t be able to handle it.” As she sent off the youth, Xia Qi said this with a helpless expression.

That she said this sentence was not without reason. On the day the youth fell ill, all of the cubs playing in the living room expectantly glanced towards the door from time to time, starting from early morning. By afternoon, the cubs started restlessly gathering close to the door and if someone tried to move them, they would slip away only to soon return to their place by the door. The cubs sat there staring at the door for hours, whimpering and calling out for the youth.

The three cubs nestled in the small house had taken it particularly hard. Even though they did not sit with the other cubs, they were the ones that most persistently called out for the youth. Every once in a while they would even fly over and slam into the closed door.

The caretakers had been at a loss of what to do. It was only after they explained to the cubs several times that the youth was sick but that he would definitely be better soon, that they were able to somewhat soothe them.

“I’m going to bring Peipei and the other two to Orte in order to participate in a competition. I will be back soon.” Looking at the fluffy cubs surrounding him and the muka cub sitting obediently next to them, Xie Luan reached out to pat them.

Next, he went to the indoor swimming pool. As soon as he approached, the mermaid cub swam to the edge. Touching the cub’s wet golden hair, Xie Luan repeated what he had told the other cubs.

Most of them took it quite well, however, there was one that was more reluctant.

The nox cub had stuck to him all morning. This had not really been a problem but now, all packed and ready to go, Xie Luan looked down at the white fluffy cub nestled in his arms.

“Meah.” The cub half-hooked his small tail around Xie Luan’s wrist and attentively looked up at him with his bright light blue eyes.

Meeting those eyes and feeling the small tail around his wrist, Xie Luan yielded.

After his surrender, the cub took the initiative to climb up onto his left shoulder. Once in place, he satisfyingly crouched down, his small tail slightly tilted behind him.

So, with a white fluffy ball on his shoulder and three different colored fluffballs in his arms, Xie Luan arrived at the nearest airport and took a commercial starship to Orte.

_______________

Translator’s note:

Ya Yi finally said his first words!! ?

It took some chapters but we finally got to see it, I guess he waited for the right moment, haha, so sly, I love it.

By the way, it will soon be Christmas and since Sweden has some weird traditions, let’s have a cultural exchange!!

1. We celebrate on the evening of the 24th, not in the morning.

2. Santa doesn’t come during the night, he comes and hands them out personally. (Which means that I kinda figured out that he wasn’t real at age two because I recognized my aunt in a beard)

3. We have a Christmas ham instead of turkey. (maybe some other country also has it?)

4. Some Swedes dance around the Christmas tree while singing about how frogs don’t have ears or tails. (I have a strict rule to only do this at midsummer when I get to jump like frogs around a big flower dressed pen*s… ehem, look it up if you don’t believe me…)

So, does your country or family also have any weird traditions? Can it beat number four? I’m very curious. (>^ω^<)


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39 Replies to “CRA Chapter 23

  1. Thank yooou for the chapter.

    1. I’m muslim so i didnt celebrate chrismast but my country have red date for christmast and its 25th~

    2. My christian friends said they celebrate it with cake or having feast

    3. They pray in church in 25th and if i didnt wrong my friend parents give them gift (i dont know the other family) and theres no santa in my country (the parents just give them the gift) for what i remember but there is chrismast tree on department store

    4. Theres no weird traditions i think? Indonesia is complicated because the majority is muslim so you cant do excessive feast or radical muslim peoples will boycott them, haha. But i think they celebrate in the department store like singing or something.

    5. For what i know when they pray in the church so much polices will guard on the outside

    6. The important one is its holidaaaay till January!! Hahahaha

  2. Thank you for the chapter, but there is one misspelling problem. “Immortal” on the sentence, “He did not consider practicing before the competition to be immortal or unjust since it was something anyone could do.” should actually be “immoral”. Try pressing Ctrl+f and searching those words to fix it maybe? Anyways, Merry Early Christmas!

  3. Thank you for the chapter! YY called his wifey in a very intimate and seductive way lololol!

    In my country we:

    1.) We eat a roasted pig (called, Lechon) instead of turkey for Christmas.

    2.) Christmas Caroling happens before and near Christmas day (unfortunately we don’t do trick or treating on Halloween, it’s just not popular for us).

    3.) We have before Christmas party, Christmas Party, and After Christmas Party. And for the very religious ones they go to church late at night.

    4.) Weirdly enough, in my country when it’s Halloween the t.v. would play christmas movies and when Christmas comes, they would play halloween movies.

    Thank you for the chapter!
    ♡♡♡

    1. Paranda?
      I learned about Christmas in a few Spanish speaking countries, and the roasting pig thing sounded a bit familiar…
      My mind might be pretending to be a rock right now so I’m not sure lol.

      1. Yep! I’m already starting to forget what they were called (´;ω;`)

        We used to eat those and I would try to eat the ham’s sauce because it was delicious and I did try to eat the red candle part of keso de bola (I was curious) but it has been I think almost 5 years or more since we have that for christmas. Oh the memories! ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡)

        Thank you for reminding me~
        :3

  4. Thank you for the chapter!

    I don’t celebrate christmas due to religious reason. But I celebrate my sister’s birthday on that same day ? She is so lucky it fell on a public holiday and all of us would go to her house to celebrate her birthday (we must that’s why).

    I quite like seeing those huge christmas trees they put in basically all big department stores or malls tbh. And all christmas sales ?

    Additionally, I just came back from a holiday in New Zealand. I’ve only seen they put up big christmas trees in some walking areas between shops (small ones that can fit in shops are inside) but the biggest I’ve seen was as tall as a 2 level storey house? And there was a santa sitting, talking and taking pictures with the kids. Didnt really notice if they’ve presents as well. ?

  5. My country’s traditions are:

    1: A decorated tree, usually topped by a star which represents the Star of Bethlehem or an angel, which is either the angel who told Mary of Jesus’ coming or the angel who told the shepherds of Jesus’ birth. It depends on who you ask.

    2: “Santa” delivers presents at midnight on the 24th, piled under the tree. Stockings are hung from a mantelpiece if you have one, and are filled with goodies like candy or very small toys.

    3: Christmas day is a big dinner, lots of sides, and the centerpiece is a ham, turkey or goose. It seems to be a regional thing as top which it is.

    My family’s traditions, however, are somewhat different.

    1: No tree. We have a garland that we put in the top corners of the room. It reaches the whole room, and we use as many different types of ornaments as possible. We have jokey ones, nostalgic ones, gifts from family & friends, tinsel, ornate cards, etc. If I judge the spacing correctly, I can cover the whole thing with no repeats, and it’s still fairly packed. There’s 40 years of collecting behind it, though.

    2: With no tree (and no small children), the family wraps all non-surprise presents together on Christmas Eve. It’s something of a party, with finger foods, eggnog (XP), and lots of goofing around.

    3: We have a big Christmas dinner, but we tend to do things like a roast pork, smoked brisket, or a barbecue, and every so often a ham or turkey. Potato salad, macaroni salad, chicken/cornbread dressing, casseroles, chowder, pecan and pumpkin pies, cookies… We go all out. We are NOT skinny people. It is, however, a pain the the butt to make all that food.

  6. I’m Filipino..
    We don’t really have weird tradition.

    1. We celebrate christmas at exatly 12am of Dec. 25

    2. We exchange gift.. I also believe in Santa Claus when I was child, I still remember that we wrote what we want for christmas in a piece of paper and put it inside the plastic bag and hang it near the window and wait for tomorrow… ??
    But when I was 8yrs old I saw my father putting the gift in my plastic bag like a thief.. Hehehe.

    3. At the end November to Dec.. We need to prepare coins because children will start carolling(singing christmas songs) outside our house. When they finished singing amd We didn’t give any coins/money. They will sing “THANK YOU, THANK YOU Ang babarat ninyo” It means thank you for being miser.

    4. We play games and eat a lot that our tummy became bigger as Santa Claus.

    5. At Dec 25 we need to prepare for our godchild. They will knock on our and ask for gift.

    Thank you for update
    Advance Merry Christmas!!

  7. Hi, thanks for the chapter

    I am from the Dominican Republic

    1. In my country we eat pork, turkey and chicken all together in a large area on the night of the 24th.

    2. Putting lights or Christmas trees is your choice but most put it.

    3. Here is the majority believe in the wise men who celebrate it on January 6 although some believe in Santa but children prefer the wise men because they are three and think they will bring more toys.

    4. something that characterizes my country is the party that never stops until dawn.

  8. Hello, I am Ukrainian, and we selebrate Christmas 25.12.
    We cook 12 tipes of dishes.
    One of which is called Kutja.
    Kutja is porridge made from whole wheat grains, barley, less often from millet or rice with added honey or sugar, sometimes with dried fruits (raisins), nuts, and poppy seeds.
    Kutyu is prepared to commemorate the dead relatives, as well as ask them for blessings and health.
    Ellen we eat Kutja, we ask our relatives to protect us and help in life, bless us for a good year.
    Also, young people go den in Ukrainian folk costumes, with a star for six, accompanied by a line, a priest, a goat, and many other characters from our folk tales. Also, the Nativity Scene caroling (колядовать) sends counter wheat or barley, it is a symbol of the fact that wealth and health come to the house.
    I hope that you will understand my story, because I am not very good in English, but I also wanted to share our traditions with you.

  9. Thanks for the chapter! My family does meatless Christmas Eve, meaning all the dishes are fish or seafood. However, since a lot of our extended relatives aren’t Ukrainian, or don’t like fish, we also have ham and garlic sausage. We eat dumplings called perogies filled with potato or sauerkraut or fruit, and cabbage rolls called holubchi on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Since we are in Canada, we have both turkey and stuffing and baked ham on Christmas Day. We usually open presents in the morning on Christmas Day. When I was a kid, we had a jumble of other customs that we picked up from family and friends, like our neighbor would dress up as Santa for his kids, and then deliver presents for us next door (and then take presents for his kids back to give to them).

  10. Thanks for the chapter!
    I’m American and a lot of traditions you see in American Christmas movies are quite common here.
    My family, on the 25th, has a big breakfast in the morning. We make pancakes, eggs, bacon, and biscuits with sausage gravy. Then we exchange gifts and play games afterward. We have a Christmas dinner (we have ham, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, corn, green beans) and in the evening watch Christmas movies.
    We use to have the big Christmas tree and the stockings hung on the wall, but we do not have any kids in our family so we stopped doing that. We also left out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.
    We did not do a lot of weird Christmas things in our family. I think the only thing that was a little different was our stockings were full of oranges and small chocolates. Most families I know put small toys and gifts in theirs.

    1. My mom found putting one apple, one orange, a few small presents (think matchbox car size) in our stockings and telling us if it was in the stocking we could eat/open it worked best. Her exact words were ‘I’m not getting up that early, if it’s in your stocking you don’t have to wake me up. Just don’t eat or open ANYTHING else.’ It kept us quiet and let her get a few more hours of sleep, as we’d normally be up for about an hour or so and we’d go back to sleep for about an hour or two after that.

  11. I’m Indian, so though Christmas is a holiday, we don’t really have any traditions to it. And though I’m Christian, my parents changed denominations when I was like 8, and we don’t celebrate it anymore. From what I recall, we just had a tree and a prayer meeting at church; no presents, cause my parents don’t believe in surprises, lol. (They’d say the same for birthdays, XD.)

  12. Hello! Thank you so much for the chapter!
    I’m American and my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and I also have no religion(though I have my own spiritual beliefs), nor did i grow up celebrating Christmas or any other traditions like that. Even though we don’t celebrate, we will still go to see each other around those days since regular jobs will get time off from work and we all live in different states in the U.S., usually hundreds or thousands of miles apart. I just flew in from Texas to Florida to see my family. :D. My sister is flying in from Europe tomorrow and my mom travels for a living and is coming to Florida to see us on the 27th of Dec. We do not give gifts since just seeing each other and hanging out is a gift in and of itself. We also do not have a feast, nor have we ever, we will instead eat our usual meals together and we will usually have a picnic outside somewhere, just a serving of food per person, nothing wasted. Usually fruit and a few snacks shared between us. I hope you all enjoy your Time together with your loved ones!

  13. Thanks for the chapter! I’m waiting for all the adventures and obstacles Xie Tao will meet with bringing Ya Yi around.

    Not a Christian but we celebrate Christmas here as well. Most of us just buy a gift for each other and have dinner together.

  14. I’m from Denmark and my family celebrates pretty much the same way but with minor differences.

    1. We also celebrate on the 24th.

    2. I actually don’t know how other families do the santa thing but we dropped it pretty early on

    3. We eat roasted pork with skin called “flæskestej”, not turkey

    4. Some families also dance around the tree but here we sing something along the lines of: “now it’s Christmas again and it will last until Easter” which contributed to some of the worst picup lines we have??

    1. We also have a song like that, it might actually be the same one, here is the Swedish lyrics:

      Nu är det jul igen
      och nu är det jul igen
      och julen varar väl till påska.
      Nu är det jul igen
      och nu är det jul igen
      och julen varar väl till påska.

      Det var inte sant
      och det var inte sant,
      för där emellan kommer fasta.
      Det var inte sant
      och det var inte sant,
      för där emellan kommer fasta.

      I don’t know if it has contributed to any pickup lines here. I actually have a hard time even imagining what they could look like, so I’m super curious, what do they say?

  15. Many thanks for the chapter!

    Cultural exchange sounds nice~
    This cat is from Poland.

    1. I think that the biggest celebration is on 24th (wishes, supper, presents) but we always had Christmas family dinners on 25th and 26th.

    2. There are also (or there are at least supposed to be) 12 dishes on the Christmas Eve – no meat as per tradition, only fish. And… You need to try every single dish!… Meow! I dislike herring, I dislike mushrooms, I dislike bony fishes (carp)… So Christmas Eve’s supper was always a little traumatic for me : P

    3. Before the supper, we break/share the wafer while making wishes (it’s often more elaborate and personal than “Merry Christmas”) and it’s often done in one to one groups and then rotates until you exchange wishes with everyone present.

    4. If I remember correctly you’re supposed to wait for the first star to show up at the sky and then there is the supper.

    5. I’m not sure as to what it looks like in other families, but for us, there was no Santa at Christmas Eve – gifts were always from “the Little Star” or “Little Baby Jesus”. They were supposed to “appear” during the supper (it’s a looong supper…) – but we often just pretend that we didn’t see them from the very beginning : P

    6. Some families sing Christmas carols.

    We’re always so overeaten after these three days in different houses…

    Merry Christmas! : D

  16. Haha I don’t celebrate Christmas but say it to others for the fun of it XD we don’t really do much in Christmas except for eating (while there are discounts everywhere XD) and travelling and… Have a fun holiday 😀 thanks for the chapter~~ your Christmas sounds fun 😀

  17. Thank you for your work!

    Here’s a (somewhat typical) American midwest christmas:

    Secular (non-religious)-
    1. In the north, evenings are dark and often snowy, so christmas eve we’ll drive around the area to look at people’s christmas light yard decorations. My family takes hot cocoa in thermal cups for this. After, we make cookies or gingerbread houses.

    2. Each year we decorate, set up a tree, and put out little lit-up painted ceramic houses that have been collected over the years. Search “department 56 christmas houses” if you’re unfamiliar with the practice.

    3. Christmas day, stockings are emptied in the morning with immediate family, then we have breakfast. Later, close relatives come over for a gift exchange.

    4. Since there are many adults, each person just buys a gift for an agreed upon value ($25 last year), then we play a game where we draw numbers and in that order, select and open a random gift of our choice. The following people can pick a gift someone already has, or a new one. People that had a gift taken, and the person who went first, can re-select a gift the same way. (It sounds complicated, but can be pretty funny!) The kids get gifts the ‘normal’ way until they turn 18.

    5. Food is usually a ham, then a mass of appetizers, christmas cookies and a build-your-own sandwich section. Dinner is rather informal, stress-free, and easy- a direct opposite of Thanksgiving.

  18. Gracias por el capitulo. Aqui desde a Argentina envio saludos para ti y toda tu familia. Pasala bien y baila mucho -se rie- en mi casa no hacemos nada de eso. De echo comemos lo que se nos pegue en gana cosinar ese día, este año sera cordero y para año nuevo lechoncito. Gracias por la traducción.
    Pd: interesantes actividades las de tu casa. -se rie-

  19. In the Philippines, the Christmas season start at September.
    We have this thing called Simbang Gabi or Night Mass that happens every night before Christmas for 9 days. Many go every night and some say if you do then you’ll get your wish granted.
    We tend to celebrate on the night of the 24th, having a huge feast(Noche Buena) with the whole family and then waiting until 12 am of the 25th to open presents. While waiting we tend to sing karaoke or play games. We also have ham instead of turkey along with many other food.
    There’s this decoration called parol which is a star lantern that is made to symbolize the star of Bethlehem and is quite popular during this time; they’ll literally be everywhere you go.
    Caroling is a huge thing here; groups of people would gather and go around the neighborhood to sing.

  20. This is kitty making his claim:

    [After his surrender, the cub took the initiative to climb up onto his left shoulder. Once in place, he satisfyingly crouched down, his small tail slightly tilted behind him.

    So, with a white fluffyball on his shoulder and three different colored fluffyballs in his arms, Xie Tao arrived at the nearest airport and took a commercial starship to Orte.]

    ??

    My family is pretty secular, we don’t do the church thing. But many do.

    When we used to get together with all my cousins and such after age 15 you didn’t get a bunch of gifts. You got to take part in the adult game. Everyone who qualifies buys a gift, some are what they want others are joke gifts. People draw lots and you go in order of picking the gifts. Thing is, you can steal other people’s gifts. You can’t steal it back. After being stolen 3 times it can’t be stolen again. But you can make deals with other players for after the game. Many a family feud started this way.

    But there are too many of us now to get together to do this.

    Another thing we used to do was my mom used to let us open gifts on Xmas Eve night then open Santa gifts on Xmas Day.

    As for food? Mainly the same stuff as on Thanksgiving with some variations. Turkey and ham depending on food quantity.

  21. Won’t it be dangerous for the knox to go outside in case people start to recognize it? Hmm worried to death but sooner or later he needs to go outside eventually :'(
    I hope he doesn’t get bullied..
    Thank you for your hard work!

  22. I’m from Mexico, here we normally celebrate the night of the 24th.

    Dinner is normally turkey, ham or tamales. Depends on the family. My family likes to eat a dish called “relleno” (stuffing), it’s basically supossed to go inside the turkey but my family likes it better as is. It’s kind of a sweet minced meat dish, with chicken, almonds, nuts, raisins, dates, cherries and the juice of the cherries. I don’t like meat though so I either eat the chicken or just eat mashed pottates with gravy and bread (quite sad).

    Many families in Mexico are catholics so some of the traditions include:

    1- Praying and singing for baby Jesus’s birth, one I like is everyone gets a little candle and them some people stand inside the house and others outside and sing to ask to stay the night (like Maria and Jose supossedly did when Jesus was born).

    2- Besides the Christmas tree it’s common to decorate with a “nacimiento”, wich is a representation of baby Jesus’s birth with small figurines. My grandma goes all out here, she basically makes a small valley full of animal figurines, small houses, wells, even a river (with real water), and a little cave for the Devil (yes, that’s right, Satan is there too, this scared me as a child), and of course angels, Maria, Jose and baby Jesus. It’s all there.

    3- Sometimes there’s a piñata too for the children and little plastic bags filled with candys, an orange and peanuts.

    The part I don’t like is that in my grandma’s house you aren’t allowed to eat until a full rosario has been prayed (that’s one prayer for every bead) and they don’t start praying until everyone is there. So basically they starve us.

  23. The translator is going back through the story and changing their name to Xie Luan, as that is a closer representation of their name I think

  24. Aww that was so cute! I know in my family, since we came to America from Northern/Baltic Europe we make peirogis and have a vegetarian dinner on the 24th and then we have ham on Christmas. And then you get to gorge on leftovers for weeks afterwards 🙂

  25. It’s December again so I think it’s quite appropriate to comment even though it’s been too ling since this chapter was translated.

    I’m from PH and we celebrate Christmas on the eve of 24 too. Merry Christmas ❤️

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