Christmas 2007

Well, my Christmas didn’t feel like Christmas either, so I guess we're all matching! I brushed my hair since it was Christmas... then the four of us girls (John and Nancy brought 2 girl sm's with them) made a fruit salad with fresh mangos and bananas and went up to Alan and Pauline’s for breakfast. We ate and then we opened gifts. It wasn’t really a big deal.

Then the boys went back to bed and uncle Alan challenged the rest of us to make six- sided snowflakes out of paper, which apparently is really hard, opposed to 4 or 8-sided ones. We did it though, and Pauline got really excited about the pretty ones. She squealed and put them on her scrawny Christmas tree.

Then they all went for a hike and me and Heidi, one of the visiting girls, peeled potatoes for mashed potatoes. We spent the rest of the time getting dinner ready. We didn’t want to waste the potatoes peels, so we deep fried them with oil, salt, and a little Cajun seasoning and they were quite the highlight of dinner if I do say so myself!

We were too full for dessert, so after we ate, we all loaded up in the cruiser and the dirt bike, taking candy and soap and Lil' Bruce the python, and went out to see Ellen (the lady who does our laundry.) on the way we handed out soap and candy to everyone we saw. At Ellen’s, all the guys put a tarp over her roof which leaks really badly. Then on the way home we stopped to see a family that I visit sometimes (the ones with 10 children) and I gave them some clothes and money to buy shoes with. Then we stopped at Bornface’s house and I gave him Christmas cookies Elena and I had made on Christmas Eve and a bag of mangoes. We found him sitting on his floor, sick with malaria, so we gave him some malaria medicine too. On the way home, I rode on the dirt bike with uncle john and he went so fast!! I screamed a lot. The road was sooo bumpy and muddy!!! Then we had dessert for supper. After that, it was pretty late, so we went to bed.

That was my Christmas. It didn’t feel like Christmas, but it was a good day, and I think it was the most productive Christmas I have ever had since we actually did things for others instead of just gorging ourselves

We washed clothes on Christmas Eve and they’re still dripping wet hanging on the line because it’s been raining every day since then.