Christmas

Well, Christmas was pretty much just another day; only we didn’t do as much work. It was 90 degrees in the shade that afternoon. Before lunch we took about a two hour hike to show Tim the campus and the river. It was hot, we got sun! We had been up past midnight talking the night before and up at 6:30 am, so it was a short night. Tim’s first flight was cancelled; his second delayed, so he ended up staying a night in Ethiopia, which we had tried to avoid. I tried to rest some in the afternoon, but you know how that goes! After breakfast and cleaning up, we opened presents. The kids had gotten candy in their stockings earlier, so they were happy. They each got one gift from us. The grandparents and Kari & Leroy sent money so we are going to do something fun as a surprise with that. It has felt like “Christmas” for awhile as we open new boxes of books, videos, clothes, toys…there really just wasn’t anything they needed. We got Cybil a few skirts (she’ll wear them, but doesn’t really care for the chitangas), got Mariah some chitangas (she wears two to three at time), Greta and Hailey each got a baby, Joe and Myron got some animals for their barn-they are running a game farm I guess! Henry didn’t get anything-what do you give a four month old? Brian’s present will come later, we got Tim a Zambia stocking hat, and I got pop-pop I don’t have to share! Right now the fridge isn’t working, so it isn’t cold pop, but it tastes good nonetheless. The afternoon was pretty laid back, finally had steak and chicken on the grill for supper. Boy was that good! I was stuffed, but it tasted so good I didn’t want to stop eating! After supper we really “celebrated!” When the explosive on the end of your yard stick firework is the size of a baseball, you know you are in for some big booms! No regulations on the fireworks here. We lit up the sky and quite a few people got to watch the celebration from all over the area. As Brian said, I never want to do fireworks in the States again! We were going to have cake before bed, but it had been a long day and everyone was crabby, so they got a piece for breakfast the next day. All and all it wasn’t that much different of a day for us. It just didn’t feel like Christmas. I am sure next year things will be a little easier.