Thursday, December 8, 2011

Christmas festivities

If I had the time, I'd be blogging like crazy because there are a million stories to be told about November and December. Stories about rats eating the electrical wires of the dishwasher, Grandpa and the Fire Department fiasco (just trying to be helpful), a stolen catalytic converter (shifty mechanics in the Philippines), falling mirrors (landlord), $616 spent during one trip to Trader Joes (consumables), dead rats stinking up the house (freakin disgusting)...the list goes on.

It's amazing that I haven't gone crazy in the last few weeks, getting a newborn interrupted 6 hours of sleep, trying to prepare for our move to Ethiopia while being Mom and hosting family during all this craziness. And seriously? Every time we are preparing to move overseas there are rodents involved.

On top of it all, it's Christmas time. My favorite time of the year. In Manila we would have had our tree and decorations up the week before Thanksgiving in following with their early and long holiday celebrations. I'm very sad that we will not be in America for Christmas this year.

We've been celebrating though. Every chance we get. My sweet husband brought home a little real Christmas tree for the girls to decorate when we found out our travel orders had been delayed and thus we are delayed leaving for Ethiopia. Now our leave date is up in the air. I know he brought this tree home for me just as much as it's for the kids. I desperately wanted to have a real tree for Christmas this year. The girls love this little tree. I have to admit it touches my heart too.So did the local community center's tree lighting celebration. Complete with Santa Claus arriving on a fire engine and Girl Scouts caroling. Driving around and seeing all the tacky Christmas lights on people's homes touches my heart too. Addie and Bella helped Kiki decorate her Christmas tree which is a dream come true for them since Kiki has an amazing collection of Hallmark ornaments. It was so much fun and made me miss unwrapping all our ornaments. I love rediscovering them every year and the memories it invokes. New memories were made at Kiki's house!

2 comments:

MaricrisG said...

Aw that is just so heartwarming! I hope your Christmas is as blessed even being so far away from home in the US. By the way, I wanted to email you but there was no way to do it, so I'll just leave you a note here. I was wondering if I can feature your picture of the Christmas tree made of twigs from your post in 2010. I left a comment there too. I'll include your link for reference of course :-) I'm currently writing the article now. I hope to hear from you ASAP. Thanks!!!

meredith said...

I actually like this tree better than last year - do you know why? I see TWO big sisters decorating it, and that warms my heart to no end!!!
You a rock star - the holidays, a new baby, no firm departure date - CRAZY!!
here to lots of new adventures in 2012 :)