Christmas is Coming!

These past 2 weeks have been so incredibly busy for us... and it's very soon going to slow down! Each day we've been checking things off our calendar and looking forward to Christmas morning when it will all stop for a little while :)

Yesterday we had 18 students here to talk about American Christmas, watch "It's a Wonderful Life" (with Russian subtitles), to hear the Christmas story and The reason for our hope. They enjoyed lots of Christmas cookies- though they barely put a dent in all the sweets... so we'll be sharing them tomorrow night at the Christmas Eve dinner we're hosting, and at our Christmas Dinner. We already gave several plates of them away when we went caroling Friday night- we spent 2 hours driving through traffic to carol to our friends 'domophone' (the intercom outside their entrance where you buzz them to let you in). We drove to Steph and Terry's place, sang, dropped off a plate of sweets; then we drove to Jason and Carolina's to do the same. It was so much fun! Totally worth the time in traffic!

This morning we dressed the boys up in costumes (G was superman and Carter was a little bitty Santa) and we headed over to Steph and Terry's for a New Year's/Christmas party. New Year here, as best as I can describe it, is an elaborate combination of American Christmas/Halloween/Forth of July/ and New Years. The kids wear costumes, receive gifts, go door to door singing songs or reciting poetry in exchange for candy, they set of fireworks and drink champagne and celebrate all night long on New Years Eve. So... today the kids were all in costumes and enjoyed a fun visit from Ded Moroz and Snegorichka. Don't worry... pics will be coming soon!. We spent this afternoon at church and are finally home and the boys are sound asleep :) yeah!

Tomorrow I'm cooking supper for Jason and Carolina and for Edik and Marianna (the Russian pastoral couple we work with) and their families. I'm making chicken pot pie, 7 layer salad, and JB made his yummy pumpkin tort! Gavin can't wait for Christmas! He's learned how to sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and can't stand that we've had gifts under the tree (for English Cafe students, our nanny, etc.) that he's not allowed to open! Fortunately for him (and us) Christmas celebrations here last quite a bit longer than in the states... so the festivities won't end any time soon!