It's been a very busy holiday season here, between working at a very festive school, having adventurous friends, being part of a great church community, and living by the world's best neighbors. If you haven't heard from me since Thanksgiving, here's why!
Our Christmas celebrations started during Thanksgiving break with a trip to Madison, Indiana to see Christmas lights with my sweet friends from Colombia, Zayde and Alvaro, and their daughter Toni and her fiancee, Eric. One of Toni's friends from ECA (El Camino Academy in Bogotá) also joined us. Such a sweet reminder of how God connects us as family and weaves our stories together.
I came back from break to a precious gift from a new coworker from Mexico that just touched my heart!
That first week back at work, we had a family gingerbread night at my new school, and I appreciated my husband and son's willingness to join me in the event, even though it was mostly for teachers with little kids. We had fun making gingerbread houses together.
For the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I set up a stocking for all of my students and the staff that work directly with them and gave them a chance to write notes of appreciation to each other. I've always done something like this with my students, and each group of students reacts differently. Sixth graders are an interesting breed, but I noticed that my quieter students really got into it and enjoyed it. They all kept wanting to peek into their stocking ahead of time, and they cared more about getting their stocking on the final day than they did about anything else planned for our party.
Then we had the annual Festival of Lights parade in Columbus. This year we sat at the beginning of the parade rather than the end, and it was a much better experience. Plus it wasn't freezing like in year's past.
Following the parade, my school had a fundraiser winter dance to raise money for our 6th grade camp in May, and I got "voluntold" to take care of the decorations. My very creative sister-in-law had a bright idea to visit the floats after the parade and ask if anybody had decorations they no longer wanted or needed that they might donate to our winter dance. Two truckloads later, we had a bunch of fake wrapped presents, some big candy canes, and a massive gingerbread house!
Before knowing I'd have all of those decorations, I had also asked Mike and David to make me some wooden Christmas trees (for our house) that I could use for the dance, and they made those for me, too. They turned out beautiful! As did the dance.
My little friend, Cooper, who is my sweet friend, Hannah's son and is also in the Legado Spanish Immersion Program where I teach. I snatched him after school to help me decorate for the dance.
Immediately after the dance, we continued with another fundraiser at school, Holiday Shop, which took place for the whole school to shop out of two different classrooms in sixth grade, one being mine. So while my students "supposedly" did E-learning, they also helped out all the shoppers that came through.
It made for an interesting week, to say the least. But the love and gifting spirit of my coworkers and administration kept my spirits high.
For our Christmas party/activity day, I had games set up at all the tables for the kids to rotate around and play together before we watched a movie together and had hot cocoa and popcorn. A nice way to end the semester of hard work.
Once school got out for break, we went with a group from church to a Colt's game because they were doing Faith and Football afterward, where we got to go down to the field and hear testimonies from two of the players and one of the cheerleaders. It was quite inspiring! The best part of the day (for me) was when I posted on Facebook that we were at the game and found out my niece was there, too, on a field trip with her Christian school in Warsaw! It was such a treat to see her!
We had a day to recuperate before Christmas Eve, and then the day started with lots of treats. First the neighbors came over with cookies, and then we saw more neighbors walk by and fill up our mailbox, that already had a package in it from my parents (just in time!).
That night, we went to the Christmas Eve service at church and got our picture by the tree. I was so excited to finally get to wear pink for Christmas since my friend in Texas found me a shirt with pink Christmas trees on it. :) Turned out nice for the picture, too!
In keeping with tradition, we stopped at Papa John's after church to bring home our Christmas Eve dinner before we opened all of our gifts, drank hot cocoa and watched Christmas movies.
Of course, I now I have slippers that look like cowboy boots. :)
Should I expect anything less from my boot-loving family? Lol.
They treated me well. :)
Now I can finally replace my 15 year old printer,
and I can bake banana bread muffins and not spend
tons of time cleaning the metal pans afterward.
Then tradition continued with cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning as everyone got up on their own time and enjoyed a quiet, peaceful morning.
Late afternoon on Christmas Day we went over to Mike's brother's house to have Christmas dinner with them and continue exchanging gifts.
You can tell we are cat-loving families because they got David a funny cat book, I got a game called You're Kitten Me, and I gave Chrissy grouchy cat socks!
We missed Juan, but he sent me a picture of all of his gifts late last night, and he was definitely showered with love.
I sure did enjoy having David here for all of the season this year and really focused on savoring every moment I could with him. He said this year felt more Christmasy than any other year, and that warmed my heart. I was a bit overwhelmed with work things, so honestly I think he's the one who made it feel so Christmasy around here. I loved experiencing his generous heart in this very new season of his life. God's preparing a job for him somewhere soon, so I'll continue to embrace every day I have with him while this is still home to him.
