Celebrating Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration today! My best gift for Christmas is definitely Maya--I am soooo very thankful for her! I started the morning out by destroying the Carmel Pull Apart's that I had tried to make (i had to make the rolls from scratch because we don't have frozen rolls here, so this was a significant investment of time). They didn't really rise well, and then I burned the dickens out of them . I didn't really follow the directions word for word on the pull apart's or on the recipe for the rolls, so that may have contributed to their failure, but either way, they were INEDIBLE! Thankfully, our friend Laura shared her tea ring with us, that was hand carried here by her brother who is visiting for Christmas. They stayed the night with us last night (Christmas Eve) and we opened some gifts this morning and ate my Dad's favorite breakfast casserole, along with the tea ring and some irish cream flavored iced coffee! So delicious. Mrs. Doubtfire was on TV and we all enjoyed watching that and laughing at all of the adult humor in it that we had missed before when we were younger.

Then Laura's neighbor and our friend and her son all arrived and we worked on cooking dinner. We made BBQ chicken, Mac and Cheese, Green Beans, Rolls, Salad and a Birthday Cake for Jesus. The girls loved all of the food and we had a great time fixing everything together then eating! After dinner we read the story of Jesus birth together and cut the cake, followed by the opening of gifts. Our friend's son was so sweet and so appreciative and amazed by the toys and gifts we got for him. All day he loved kissing and holding and admiring Maya (who was a great sport and allowed us to pass her around from person to person all day). It is common practice among some groups here to promise your children in marriage to the children of your relatives from the time they are very young. Because our friend's son has grown up in this culture, he's used to this practice and has already told us that he plans on marrying Maya when she grows up! After the gifts and cake our friend and her son had to head for home, but we got to sing a bunch of Christmas carols with Laura's neighbor (she just left about 30 minutes ago).

Now we've washed all the dishes and picked up most of the messes and the guests have all gone home and we're chilling with Laura and her brother, watching A Christmas Story and eating left-over sweets.

We are so thankful that Jesus put on flesh and became a helpless human baby in order to make a way for us. We have so much to celebrate and be thankful for!