It's almost 1:30 a.m., the wee hours of Christmas morning in Ensenada, Mexico. This is my fourth Christmas here but my second with my adopted Mexican family.

Here Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve. The day is spent cooking, delivering gifts to friends, then a siesta before the big events.

Dinner is usually served at around 10:00 p.m., then the gifts are opened. The custom is to go to midnight mass, or if the family stays home, which mine does, at midnight the Baby Jesus is taken off the nativity altar and passed around the room. Each person kisses the baby Jesus and takes a sweet off of the tray.

This Christmas wasn't as wild as last year, but even as I write this, fireworks are going off all over town, which is the tradition here. After we had dinner and passed around the baby Jesus, I went outside and stood in Mamita's garden, listening to the fireworks and gazing up at the full moon. The air was full of smoke from the fireworks, the lights on the houses were blinking, and happy voices of families floated down the street.

We had a lovely traditional American Christmas dinner with a turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, bread, salad with cilantro dressing, yams and cranberry sauce. The traditional meal here is usually tamales but my Mamita's husband (who is deceased) was American so the family still honors the American Thanksgiving and Christmas meals American style, around the Mexican schedule.

I am so blessed to finally be able to look forward to Christmas. For so many years I spent Christmas alone, either working or simply living in a new place with only my cat and TV for company, but I never really minded that. I am thrilled to be in my 50's and finally loving Christmas again. This year was my third wonderful Christmas in a row.

What is an added pleasure is having my Eons friends to exchange Christmas greetings with and an entire community to read about, and other posts, blogs and stories to both uplift me and encourage me to count my blessings.