Another Christmas Picture

Christmas Day

We had a different than usual but fun Christmas. It was difficult to be away from family and friends over the holidays but God provided new friends to celebrate with. We are really enjoying the 3 week Christmas break from school and the mild temperatures. The temperatures have been about 20 to 30 degrees warmer than at home over the last few weeks. Most people here don't celebrate Christmas so we bought an artificial "New Year's tree". "New Year's trees" are hard to find and quite expensive. The tree I initally picked out was quickly discarded when we realized it was $1200. Another lovely tree was $2300. Our tree was not my first choice but it was only $65 (quite a bargain).

Turkeys are also rather rare and expensive. Our turkey was $80 but you only need a Christmas turkey once a year and he was really big, so I decided to buy it anyway. It was enough to feed all 24 at our house for supper with heaps of leftovers.

More fall pictures from December 13th

After we took the family picture shown in the last post, the kids and I stayed outside raking leaves and playing. We have 12 big trees in our backyard so it took a while, but by the time I was done we had such a big pile of leaves that I wanted to take more pictures (although I haven't scrapbooked since April so maybe I should stop taking pictures.)

It snowed here about a week later -- just in time for Christmas. I bought a huge turkey that just barely fits into our tiny oven and we are having 24 people for dinner tomorrow night. We are very thankful for our new friends and a chance to celebrate the birth of Jesus with them.

Family Photo

Back in November we tried to get a "Fall Photo" but a little snow fell overnight and ruined Karla's leaf motif. Well, today we had beautiful weather (6 degrees and calm as always) so we decided to try again. Our knees got a little dirty in the wet leaves, but the photo turned out all right -- despite the kids usual antics.

We have one more week of school before Christmas break, but we still don't have a tree so it doesn't quite seem like the Christmas season. We've been playing Christmas music but it won't be the same without our family. But God has blessed us with some great new friends here and we hope to have some "get-togethers" over the break. We hope your holiday preparations are going well too!