Spanish home births.

Today, a woman invited me to a nacimiento, which, being the boss at Spanish that I am, I immediately knew to mean birth.

"Interesting!" I exclaimed. "I've never seen one before."

"Never?" she asked.

"No..."

"It's in my house," she told me. "It's going to be sometime in late December."

Oh, I said to myself, she must be a midwife! "Are births often in houses here?" I asked.

"Yes, a fair amount," she replied. "And in churches, of course."

Churches? I thought, puzzled.

"You're living in Córdoba, right?" she asked. I nodded, and she continued, "Keep an eye out for signs. Some houses enter in competitions."

That was when I realized that nacimiento means a nativity scene.