ESTEBAN JOEL: AMAZING BOY BLOGGER: Spending the Holidays with the family... and other forms of child abuse.

When you adopt parents, the first thing that they tell you at the adoption agency is that you'd better be prepared to accept new rituals and traditions... no matter how strange they may seem to be at first. Last week's wierdness... Christmas.

Here's how it works as far as I could figure out. Every December 25th a morbidly obese elderly man flies around the world and delivers presents to all of the little children around the world. He does this by being pulled across the sky by flying reindeer. The presents are all made by an army of loyal elves who work from a list of requests from the children who have earned the right to be categorized as nice and not naughty.

Really?

Alright listen. I'll play along only because it seems to be very important to my Mommy and Daddy that I do. You should have seen them. Thay were running around all week telling me that Santa was coming and that he had many surprises in store for me. But I have several issues with this story.

1) How is he able to deliver toys to all of the children of the world in 12 hours and it takes 3 to 5 working days for the cable guy to come out and fix the TV so I can watch The Backyardigans?

2) Elves, huh? In my country it's called child labor. Call the authorities.

3) He decides who's naughty or nice? That's it... I'm getting a publicist.

4) The North Pole? I'd pick a more centralized location for my manufacturing plant. It would save on delivery time. I recommmend a more tropical climate... like Cali, Colombia, for example... just a suggestion.

So Mommy, Daddy and I all went to Mommy's home in Puerto Rico to celebrate Christmas. I got a lot of presents and it was fun but I still didn;t quite get what all of the fuss was about. Maybe it's because I'm only 18 months old... maybe it's because I go to bed at 7 pm everyday and I missed most of the action on Christmas and New Year's Eve. Either way... what was so great about this holiday season wasn't so much the holiday season as much as it was the fact that I got to meet and spend a lot of time with my family on the island.

It was so awesome that I created a new song called:

THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS... PUERTO RICO STYLE.

Everybody all together now...
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

12 uncles chilling...

11 cows a mooing...

10 tractors moving...

9 horses hoofing...

8 wagons pulling...

7 goats a drooling...

6 cowboys cruising...

5... scooter... grins...

4 pounds of beans...

3 new aunts...

2 new best friends...

And a Colombian in a big tree.

I loved Puerto Rico. The scenery reminded me of Colombia and my family there is huge and loving. I even found out that I'm not the youngest member of my family. My cousin Xavier is. He's very little and Mommy was very proud of me because I was so gentle with him. What was I supposed to do? He's my little cousin.

Esteban Joel, Ninja Farmer thinks over his impending battle with the mango trees.

Okay Frida... here's the plan for the day. I drool and you poop... or we can also do it the other way around. I'm good either way.

So this is our farm, Abuelo? I like it... did you notice how I said our farm?

I'm a cowboy... on a real horse I ride... and I'm wanted... Dead or alive.

Sorry... more of Daddy's Jedi Training. This week: The Bon Jovi era.

It's good to have older cousins like Andreia who know their way around a horse. One day I'll invite her to Colombia and teach her how to ride a motorcycle through the streets and ignore all the traffic signs and lights.