although its been said many times many ways...

its been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. had a christmas cookie exchange with fellow mccers. us SALT girls made over 350. a little overboard? i think not! definitely necessary because right now it does not feel like December, let alone 4 days til Christmas.to help get in the christmas mood i decorated centro menno and play christmas music i find on youtube. and i sing out loud - gives the colony mennonites a little show. we also had a christmas party with all the MCC bolivia staff. somehow i was on the planning committee and ended up in charge of games. so we had a snowball fight with newspaper and a pinata :)

wednesday was my host mom's bday, so late tuesday night a bunch of people from work came over to serenade her. i got home from walleyball around 11:30 and they were in the middle of serendaing. we ate a little dinner afterward and everyone left around 12:45am. My host dad sang the first song he ever sang her outside her window when they started dating. Apparently the boys in her neighborhood didn't like him, so they threw rocks at him and chased him when he was on his bike. He told another story that he took her on a date to a movie, but when it was time to go home he only had 1 boliviano, not enough to take her home to the 3rd ring. So he went and bet his 1b on a street game, hoping to make enough cash. He lost it all and they had to walk in the pouring rain :)

christmas came a little early on friday...the mail finally came!! i received a package and letters from friends and family back home and it just made my week! recieving mail here is a huge waiting game - one letter was mailed back in early november. but now i have more letters to read, cards to hang on my wall, and dark chocolate m&ms to eat and not share (thanks wyatt!)

my last day of work for the year is tomorrow! my host bro is getting married on the 23rd in the morning, so that should be a fun day. and i'm excited to experience christmas bolivian style. but i think to me it will just seem like a new holiday and not really christmas - i definitely miss the christmas songs on the radio, traditional christmas food,etc. but not snow :) we had a christmas program last night at church that was cute - but went over 2 hours long. one skit was of a parrot flying around looking for i think love and peace for christmas and was cute. and while a parrot is appropriate for bolivia, i kept thinking of the movie "love actually" where there are lobsters and octopuses at the nativity, so i had to try really hard not to laugh.

but then hey, what is christmas? although nat king cole says "turkey and mistletoe help to make the season right" (and there is no turkey here) i have to remember that i'm celebrating the same thing with people from bolivian and old colony cultures - God's love is so great and amazing that he came as "a babe in the straw to save us all." merry christmas!

The serenaders.

The cookies! Finally showed my host family I have some useful skills.