Christmas 2017

Christmas Eve: Shepherd's Dinner

 We had our traditional Shepherd's dinner on Christmas Eve this year. The original plan was to have a bon fire and have the dinner outside under the star light, but the boys discovered a large fire ants nest inside our fire pit and it rained all day Christmas Eve. We had the dinner inside.

 We had a rosemary lamb roast, homemade naan bread and hummus, olives and pomegranates. We eat these traditional middle eastern foods while reading the account of the Savior's birth in Luke 2 and singing carols.

 Some friends blessed our family with money to buy Christmas presents this year. We used some of the money for essential items, but most went to providing Christmas presents for our kids. Here they are all wrapped and under the tree. The box in front was John's wrapping job. We wrapped on Christmas eve this year, after the little ones went to bed.

 

Christmas Morning

 As usual, the kids woke us up at 7am. We went out together and they opened their stockings.

 Rachel got to open the first gift this year. 

 This is a lego ship Johnny built for Joshua.

 Rachel handed out the lego creations she had made for everyone.

 She did a good job. This is a house she built for Arwen and a car she built for Joshua. 

 Most of the kids got one big-ish present. Rachel and Anya each got a lego set. They were very happy about them and have been shut in their room building and playing since.

 The little kids got more presents because they like inexpensive things such as crayons and dolls. They were happy too.

 Sam really liked his new pacifier clips.

A Christmas Highlight

 Later on in the day, we got to have a skype conversation with Ruth. She looks lovely, and sounds very happy. I loved seeing her and watching her move around and talk and tell us about her mission and England. She got a Chinese dinner lunch from a sister from Mongolia. Ruth loves Asian food the most and she said it was really good. Then she went to the couple missionaries apartment for a meal and to make the calls home. Ruth's companion came in to see all the kids. I think we are a bit of a novelty. We had already had a fancy breakfast of crepes, strawberries, and bacon. The kids taunted Ruth and she was a little jealous of that. But...

We got an email from Ruth the day after Christmas. She was invited over for a Boxing day breakfast and had crepes and strawberries and real bacon!!! (Apparently, most of the bacon in the UK is Canadian bacon which tastes like ham.)

All in all, I think we had a very Merry Christmas full of many blessings and tender mercies.