Holidays in New Ways

We didn't COMPLETELY skip American Thanksgiving...we just had to postpone it a little.  The schools here aren't let out for it, so we had a dinner with friends on Saturday afternoon.  All of our favorite foods from America were present and accounted for.  I was in charge of a couple of pies, and finally managed to find shortening (although priced at triple what I would pay at home) so that I could make pie crusts, so I played my part and showed with a banana cream and lemon cream pie.

Sometimes you just have to steal a baby.  And sometimes, after you steal the baby, you have to put that baby in an Indian head dress.  Hanna was a good sport.  As was her mother.

But, by the time I got around to putting a pilgrim hat on my stolen baby, she wasn't so amused by me anymore.

The kids' table.

Angela, Charity, Chris, Kristina, and Lori.  These lovely ladies are in my branch and are perfectly delightful in every way.

Jamie (on the left) was our lovely hostess.

The girls have been begging to "put up the Christmas tree" but I had told them they couldn't until Thanksgiving was over with.  The instant we walked in the door from Thanksgiving dinner they pulled out the "tree" and got to work.  Decorations here will be sparse- fortunately everywhere else is decorated to the hilt, so it still feels like Christmas.  I just had no way to get Christmas decorations here and will have no way to get new Christmas decorations back home, so we are keeping it simple.  And miniature.

We have a tree and a nativity so I think we are covered on both religious and secular fronts.

Yesterday we celebrated my friend Jen's son's first birthday.  I love that the friends we have made here just open their arms and make each other family.  It has been my favorite part about this adventure so far- to see how willing people are to make a friend and be a friend and share traditions and special occasions.  So even though the food is different, and the timing is different, and the traditions are different, we still feel like we are having special holidays and occasions here.

Kate with her new friends Ellie and Whitney.

Jen and her grown-up one year old, Zander.

Eating his cake.  He is so delicious.

Some more of my ladies...Jen, Cathy, Robyn, Chris, Kim, and me.
I really could go on all day about how amazing they are.

We also didn't skip tree decorating entirely either- Bruce's staff at the office let the girls decorate the tree there.

Little bit of free advertising for inContact...

On our way to Corregidor we saw this Christmas star as we were filling up the gas tank.

It was made entirely of anti-freeze bottles and the like. It was festive and still appropriate for a gas station!

It's probably getting redundant at this point, but we are still having a good time!