¡felices fiestas!

Dear Real Madrid,

To improve on your Christmas videos, I would suggest the following.

1.  If you’re going to have the players wishing the fans a “Merry Christmas,” then you probably should release the videos before Christmas, that is, unless you mean Christmas 2014 and New Year 2013.

2.  Speaking of how long it took you to release the videos, each one was only about 15 seconds long!  How in the world did it take that long if each video was that short?   And combining videos never hurt anyone, because after a while, “Deck the Halls…” becomes really grating…

3.  I would love to see the players speaking to the fans in their native tongues!  An international video would be nice!

4.  You also might want to indicate which camera the players should look into.

5.  Poor Calleti!  I’d rather have three players together than one lonely one!

6.  Let the players be themselves!

7.  How can it be Christmas without Mesut saying “Fe-liz Na-vi-dad a to-dos”?

8.  And special note to Luka – try not to look so depressed when you’re wishing someone happy holidays.

Anyway, here are some of the moments from the Christmas videos.

We got to see more of the true sides of the players, instead of their stiff alter egos, in the bloopers video.

Cris and Pepe had an excellent time shooting their little segment, which apparently took many takes.  Again love the ties, and the suit.

Kaká visited Marcelo and Pipa on the set…

… and according to the web site, Karim Benzema messed up various times because he was looking for the “perfect greeting for el madridismo.”  Awww!

Who can keep a straight face when these two are looking at you?

And Pipa was the guest star on The Marcelo Show.  I hope he becomes a regular!

Why was Ángel di María missing once again?  And where was Fábio?  They were both at the lunch… I think whoever organized this whole thing should get coal this year.

As for the cantera, we had Juanfran and Tomás Mejías providing the greetings on behalf of Castilla…

… and Álvaro López, Sergio Aguza and Mohamed Kamal for RMC.

Watch the making of (bloopers) video here, the Christmas greetings videos here, and the cantera videos here.

The boys, meanwhile, are back in training today.  As for their vacations, here are some of the photos they shared.

Mesut was hanging out, as were the Callejón twins.  I can now see the differences between the two, I guess from all the time spent staring at José.

Sami was larking around in Zermatt…

… while Chori was hanging out with his brothers in his sunny hometown.  According to Miguel, Thiago (his son and Raúl’s nephew) managed to beat his dad and his uncles at parchís.  Raúl also made an appearance at an El Corte Inglés in Valencia to sign autographs, and he was accompanied by his two adorable daughters!

Iker was in London, and found Cibeles there!  He also watched QPR play!  (And hopefully got to practice his English too.  I wondered if he called anyone a crony?)

Marcelo was in Amsterdam with the family…

… and Karim was back home in Lyon, and posed there of course.  Plus, here’s a little video of Pepe and Ana Sofía baptizing little Angeli!

As for Xabi, he was posing and playing with Euskal Selekzioa, which beat Bolivia 6-1 in a friendly at the Anoeta, Xabi’s old stomping grounds.