Christmas Eve

We're praying that you have a wonderful and joyous Christmas and a blessed New Year!!
Wow! We had a fantastic Christmas celebration last night! :)

Our Nativity



Christmas Stars



Sydney and I wore the saris that Serina gave me so many years ago.

Sydney and I in our Sari's

All day long the girls and boys were busy getting everything ready for the evening meal; an important man sponsored the meal for everyone. While we waited for him to arrive we took a bunch of pictures of the lights and practiced singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" just in case we were called up on to sing (we weren't, but it never hurts to be prepared!). Before the guest of honor arrived we all got a sparkler or two and enjoyed lighting off some fire works! It was a lot of fun!

Fireworks and Christmas lights!

Once the guests arrived we had a cake cutting, of course. Cake is a big deal here, everyone loves it and we all eat – you guessed it! With our hands. I don't even know what happened, but someone whipped frosting on Rajivee's face – resulting in a full fledged frosting fight! I was an easy and desirable target, as were Sydney and Pappa. We had a lot of fun and took some photos :-)

Frosting Faces!

After cleaning up we enjoyed our meal which was followed by ice cream, the perfect way to finish up the spicy dishes! It was very nice because Anju, one of the senior girls, made sure to include us with the other girls as we ate. We laughed a lot and had a good time.

Next we played with more fireworks. Apu's favorite thing to do was to shout "T-ow!!" right after every explosion. Some of the fireworks were really big and literally shot off right above our heads! When we had run out of ammo we all sat on the floor in the main room and every child received a gift from Pappa and Mummy. Even Sydney and I! I didn't expect to receive anything because they had already given us a gift. I received a beautifully embroidered orange/brown/fall colored churidar (the outfits we wear). Sydney's is yellow made with beautiful fabric and lots of detail of pearls and sequence around the neckline.

Arun sharing a sparkler with baby Abi

Then we handed out the Christmas cards which Sydney had made.

 Everyone was happy and enjoyed the night. We were all up past midnight. It was a fun and beautiful time!