Christmas morning, I woke up at like 5:30 (because, ya know, that’s the latest I can sleep here anyways) and whipped up a batch of sugar cookies for breakfast. And on my way into the kitchen, I noticed a huge paper tree that had been hung in a corner of our living room…complete with a giant “merry Christmas Tete” sign, and all of our White Elephant gifts displayed underneath. When everyone finally made their way out to the living room, we opened our stockings first. Complete with 5 BonBons, tons of candy, a lighter, a deck of cards, a bag of “magic naks” (off-brand cheetos) and a mini packet of dish soap. Overall, we were very pleased with the stocking presents! Then, we started our White Elephant game (I’m apparently the only one who calls this game “dirty santa” so they made me switch to white elephant….for the record, I’m sticking with Dirty Santa). Highlights included a world cup capulana, a jar of peanut butter, some American snack food, dishes, spices, seeds AND (this was the present that I ended up with!) some beautiful handmade beaded jewelry from our own little artist, Eden. I literally could never have too many earrings, so I was super excited about this.
After gifts, we moved both fans, tons of pillows and blankets into the living room to begin the Christmas movie marathon. There was also a “food prep” table in the back of the room so that people cooking (ie. Me) could see the movies too. So during ELF, I made homemade lasagna. During Nightmare Before Christmas, I took a nap…while Home Alone was on, we ate some kind of cheese-grit-experiment that resulted from failed corn chips….For A Christmas story, I made homemade marinara sauce….Ps this entire time, there were always at least two people asleep on the floor somewhere. We had an overall, very lazy Christmas. After A Christmas Story, we kicked it into high gear for cooking and as we attempted to cook a pheasant our neighbors gave us. Which pretty much was just us (Eden) covering the entire bird with salt, olive oil, limes, mangos, and onions and baking it for like 2 hours. Meanwhile, I assembled the entirely-from-scratch veggies lasagna (with green peppers, onions, tomatoes and okra) and some garlic bread. Unfortunately, two of the seven of us went down early that night with a stomach bug – so the feast was just for five of us. We returned the living room to its normal state (ie sans giant pallet/nap area) and had nice dinner while we watched The Holiday (yes, I have gotten over my aversion to the Holiday). Not to brag, but that food was BOMB. Homemade lasagna is going onto my list of successful foods that I can make here! And pheasant was pretty legit too! A little chewy, and not too much meat, but overall a success.
After The Holiday, we tried to watch Love Actually (which, as you probably know is like my all time favorite movie)….unfortunately, I can’t stay awake past 10:30 anymore, so I only got the first 45 minutes in before I passed out. No fear though, I watched it the next morning…..
Obviously, I was super bummed out about missing Christmas at home with my family. And as my permanent roommate (Yessica sprenkel) so kindly pointed out, “now you know that Christmas is REALLY about family and friends” (she’s so wise!). And it really is…As much as I would have wanted to be at home, we were all grateful that we weren’t stuck in some airport in the States being so close yet so far from our families…silver lining…. Anyways, enough of that little ramble haha!
Hope yall had as great of a Christmas as we did! Enjoy the rest of the holiday season (where its under 100 degrees!!)
Much love from Africa!!
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