These are the "good 'ole days"

Our first Christmas together as a family of five was fantastic. Oh sure, we have had our ups and downs over these last few months, but overall, I know we'll look back on this as a SWEET, SWEET time! These are the good 'ole days, right?

Here are a few highlights of our first Christmas together:

Obviously the American symbol for Christmas is the Christmas tree so EVERY time we saw a Christmas tree ANYWHERE, the girls would point and say "look, Christmas!" Even now, nearly four weeks post Christmas, the girls see regular trees that are shaped like Christmas trees and say "look, Christmas!"

We didn't go with the whole Santa routine with them because, one) Misrak is just too old to start it. Two) we really wanted to instill the TRUE meaning of Christmas and Three) the girls are really relying on us to tell them TRUTH about everything and we are building trust with them. Even though we TOLD her the truth she still kept asking questions.... how he was going to get in "though the fireplace?" "Do the reindeer really fly?" Poor thing didn't know what to believe.

We are really trying hard to keep "America" and "the world" at bay but man, it is really tough. I think we did great at having a modest Christmas and making sure to give to Christ at Christmas. It is, after all, His birthday! And since He isn't here in the flesh to give to, we give to the least of these. We gave Him a portion of a well for clean drinking water in Ethiopia. This is one of Druarto's children (benefitting from the well) that we met while we were there in August. See our giving blog at www.lifeforlangano.blogspot.com I think between our family a few other families we raised enough for an entire well!

Our Christmas eve service at church was cute. All of the children were given costumes as part of the Christmas story. The girls were angels of course. When they got to the part of the story where the angels appeared to the shepherds, the girls had to go up on the stage. They weren't nervous though because they were only 2 of about 20 angels.

We asked the girls what their favorite part of Christmas was. They both answered they loved being all together on Christmas morning and opening gifts together.

Christmas day was spent just the five of us playing with gifts and toys and cooking! whew! Todd cooked a turkey and I made all the sides. We make a pretty good team. I (Emily) cannot IMAGINE doing any of this without him!
>