Christmas!!

We had a great Christmas. It was a combination of Honduran and North American culture. My parents and brother Jeff were here for a week and a half which made this Christmas extra special for us!

One thing I love about our job is we get to be the middle men in blessing others - so we took the $600 that some people in Dartmouth, MA wanted to give to a church and spent the $ on 200 gift bags for kids in that church. the bags were a drawstring backpack with pencils, scissors, coloring book and colors, candy, a few toys etc. then we sent them on their way to the church.

then we made 12 batches of sugar cookies with my English class out at El Ayudante - both to do something fun with them and a so we could have a cookie decorating party the next night. my Dad is the King of making sugar cookies and he did a great job at orchestrating us all :).

We did a Christmas Party for the community of Lo De Reina - it is the immediate community surrounding El Ayudante. There are about 200 in the community so we didn't know how many to expect - about 90 people showed up so therefore we had LOTS of food! :) My English class made Pastelitos for everyone - it took most of the day. A pastelito is like an empanada that is filled with meat and potatoes with seasoning (like a hash) and that is in a corn tortilla dough and enclosed and fried - then it's topped with a sweet tomato sauce, a slice of tomato, and some shredded cheese. we had over 300 of them! and then 300 cookies!

We had a coloring table for the kids, Christmas music going and some kids games out. We served coffee, a board member spoke for a few minutes about Christmas and the true meaning of it, we served the food and then opened up the Cookie decorating table (which was a big hit!). most of the cookies had more frosting then cookie and even the adults were into it. we then showed the children's version of the Jesus film on the back porch for those that wanted it while the rest of us continued to color and talk and play games. it was a great night of fun and relationship building.

In Honduras Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve - with staying up most of the night, eating a type of tamale (but it's wrapped in banana leaves) that's called a nacatamale and then a dessert called torrejas (don't know how to spell that one). our neighbors and pastor dropped off some for us so we could have some. Families play games, eat, be together, shoot of fireworks, and stay up all night long - and then sleep all day on the 25th. A little different then us :)

What we did was go to a zoo/restaurant on the 24th for lunch that serves lots of Christmas typical foods, we went to the Christmas Eve service at church, and then most stayed up playing games. Christmas morning we opened presents and laid around, my mom cooked a big Christmas dinner in the afternoon. everything was more special this year because my family was here to celebrate with us!

((Below is a picture of the Christmas dessert Torrejas - it tastes better than it looks!))

Sigel and Maddy both love their Uncle Jeff!!!