After using Christ-centered ornaments my mom gave us a few years ago to count down the 12 days of
Christmas, it finally came. The kids
opened their traditional gift of pajamas on Christmas Eve, but this year, Briant surprised them
with little “lanterns” to sleep with.
They reminded him of the lanterns on “Little House on the Prairie” that
we watch as a family, and thought the kids would get a kick out of them. You have to blow into the lantern to turn
them on and off, and it has a dial to adjust the brightness. Our kids, especially Rhea, still like to
sleep with a little light so it was the perfect Christmas Eve gift.
The kids could hardly
fall asleep, especially with sleeping in the same room. We dragged Thomas’ and Rhea’s mattresses into Savvy’s room. They finally got to
sleep only to wake us up at 1:30am saying, “Merry Christmas!” Apparently Thomas read the time on one of our
a/c remotes as saying 6:30am (it has never been programmed to have the right time!),
which was the time we told them we would go out to open presents. Thomas woke the girls up, and all three of
them came bouncing into our room to wake us up.
Needless to say, it was a bit of a downer for all of us. The kids were disappointed, and I struggled
to get back to sleep after tucking them all in again and getting Thomas
something to eat because he was hungry. J
When it was actually 6:30am, we lined the kids up in the
hall youngest to oldest, and let them run out.
A tender moment of expressing gratitude for the homemade
gifts they gave to each other. I of
course had to capture this on camera—it warms my heart and makes me wish they
were always this perfectly cute to each other!
Savannah made stockings, Rhea wrote love notes and made a bead chain for
each of them, and Thomas wrote acrostic poems with the girls’ names to describe
them (he had been working on making up songs for them on the piano, but the very first day of school break, Rhea accidentally plugged the piano into the wrong outlet and it fried the cord. Luckily the piano itself survived, unlike 2 of our not-so-lucky can openers--we just had to buy a new cord that took 3 weeks to arrive). I love what they all came up with! They're all wearing their cute blankets Santa gave them.
Every year we give the kids 3 gifts. The gifts correspond to the purpose of the gold, frankincense and myrrh that were given to the Savior. They are needful, joyful, and meaningful. This year, Thomas' meaningful gift was centered around his love of the piano. He said a few months ago, "If there was no piano, there would be no Thomas." He has really come to love the piano as a way of expressing himself this year and we all love supporting him in this. His joyful gift was a laptop that he helped pay for, to help him develop his computer programming skills he has been working on. Mom and dad are still controlling where and when he uses the computer though. :)
This
year, Savannah has taken an interest in the medical field. It probably stems from all of the broken
bones, stitches, ear infections, ear tubes, etc. that she has had to have in her life, and
probably most recently the stitches she got from cutting her heel open and
almost having to have stitches from cutting her shin. She was excited to take a first aid class
after school last semester as well. She
thinks that she might possibly like to be a nurse someday "until she's a mom." So, to support and encourage what she’s
interested in this year, we got her a gift focused on this: posters of all the different body systems,
models of the body, a Dr.’s uniform, real stethoscope and blood pressure kit,
etc. Her joyful gift correlated with it—a
wheelchair, cast, and crutch set for her dolls to help take care of them.
Rhea received a meaningful gift focused on teaching,
the obsession that she’s had since she was 4.
Every day she comes home from school insisting that she have time to “teach”
before she does any homework. That is her way of unwinding and playing. She already
had some supplies, so we added to it. A
map to write on, books with audio CDs to read to her students, a clock and some
tens blocks to teach math. All of these
things happen to be things she could use for her own learning as well. Her joyful gift correlated with the teaching
in that she likes to talk and sing, especially with a microphone. So she got a karaoke machine that she can
also use to play her audio book CDs to her students.
After present opening and breakfast, we made some cinnamon muffins and took them to Chris, the Staff Sergeant of our Marine detachment at the embassy. The kids made some cute thank you cards for him as well. There are no holidays for the Marines!
The Elders came over that night for dinner and Skyping home to their families. We had them take our annual 'in front of the tree' pic for us. They also had fun taking pics with our kids. You can see why we love having the Elders over! They're like older brothers our kids never had. :)
The Elders took turns eating, Skyping, and playing with our toys. Sadly Elder Mistola could not get ahold of any family or branch members back home in Maputo despite trying for a few hours. We felt really bad for him but feel better knowing that he goes home in a few months. Elder Ostler, wanting to be an architectural engineer some day, loved building the light-up lego truck Thomas got for Christmas, with Elder Mistola's support, and Elder Bradshaw played some logic games. Elder Mitchell was wonderful to help Thomas, for probably an hour, to solve the Rubik's cube he had gotten in his stocking. He started teaching him some of the algorithms so he could make sense of what he was trying to accomplish. The teaching went on until Elder Mitchell asked us what bathroom we would prefer that he throw up in. :) He had arrived at our house feeling a little sick from the food he had eaten earlier in the day so he didn't touch anything we made for them. I was happy to know that we had not caused his upset stomach but I felt bad for him! At least he felt better afterwards. And dad played with the etch-a-sketch he had asked for from Santa.
After all of the Elders were done skyping and the kids went to bed (they were exhausted from the middle of the night wake-up), we played a quick game of Pictionary. Elder Mitchell partially joined the game, wrapped in blankets and recovering after he had thrown up. We had so much fun laughing over the quality of drawings, and a few minor language barrier issues with Elder Mistola from Mozambique. He was a good sport though--he misunderstood a few of the words--he drew "driver" instead of "diver." Briant and Elder Ostler won handily and they have not let us forget it!
The days following Christmas, the kids enjoyed playing with all of their presents and building lego creations with dad. Briant spent hours with them creating what they wanted. I still hear him every now and then in Thomas' room alone playing with the legos, making new things or modifying the old:
Our wonderful friend Aaron brought us a Christmas ham from Costco the last time he was out. Bless him! That is one thing I was really craving--the ham with the brown sugar sauce that we have every year! He sacrifices time and energy every time he comes back to Angola to bring us what he can, and this time he made sure I had my ham. :) It was beautiful and seriously tasty! They don't have ham here except in pre-cut deli slices that don't taste as good as the ham back home and some ham that we try to pass off as bacon. This large ham was a welcome sight to our eyes and taste buds! The days are blending together, so I thought we ate it on Christmas, but we actually saved it for the next day so we could really enjoy it and freeze leftovers. I really do love the Elders, but I also really wanted to have leftovers, so we served them other things (oven-baked chicken legs and mashed potatoes) on Christmas. It worked out though because none of them really wanted anything to eat on Christmas anyway by the time they got to our house. We did spoil them with cinnamon muffins, chocolates, pumpkin cookies with cinnamon and chocolate chips, and no-bake cookies which they ate. And we sent some home with Elder Mitchell to eat when his stomach felt better.
It was a wonderful Christmas. Our hearts are full of gratitude for all of our blessings! I'm grateful to be here in Angola where I'm reminded every day how blessed our family is and how I should be carrying gratitude in my heart always.
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