It seems like India finally caught the Christmas Bug. Within reason of course--but I've been smiling from ear to ear about it. For starters, the branch had set up a christmas tree and nativity in the foyer of the church, and I stumbled upon a little bit of money I wasn't planning on having which meant I could do some Christmas shopping AND I even found wrapping paper, which believe it or not is pretty hard to do here.
Maybe it was only because I was doing actual Christmas shopping but the mall seemed to have an extra cheery holiday feeling to it. They even had Santa walking around, however I avoided him because he was sporting a pretty creepy mask. He really needed to be himself and ditch the mask for the good of everyone. There is one spot on the ground floor level of the mall where you can look up and see hundreds of snowflakes that have been hung from all the different levels. Since that is the closest I will get to snow this year I enjoyed it for a minute or two. I'm not going to lie, it is really pretty and was really nice to be in the "snow" but be warm and cozy too. And not have to worry about black ice and winter driving. It was the best of both worlds. I've been about my regular work (still not allowed to go to colony though) but in-between I have been wrapping presents, sending virtual christmas cards and delivering small "gifts" of simple things like fresh salsa and miniature sodas. Alamalu and Selvi made us some "Happy Christmas" rangoli which as always was beautiful. That is a funny thing about Christmas here though, they always say Happy Christmas and tend to look at us weird when we say Merry Christmas. Some people humor us but regularly, it is Happy Christmas, not Merry Christmas.
I know this is going to sound ultra cheesy but I've seen all kind of little Christmas miracles happening, making it so everything is falling into place. For example, we found out that there will be two kids staying on campus over the Christmas break, UKG Praveenkumar and this sister Elina--who is in 8th Standard I believe. There were a few kids that went home at fall break and never came back. The staff tracked them down, two of them were girls who's mothers were going to marry them off and the other was Elina. She didn't come back because she was caught in the middle of a nasty custody battle between her divorcing parents. So to make a long story short, we were finally able to get her back to campus (as well as her brother Praveenkumar who is a new student) a week before Christmas break started. No one actually told us why they didn't get to go home, but I am assuming that it was too risky to send them back so soon, plus it was most likely to late for travel arrangements to be made.
I am proud to say that I was the creator of the white elephant gift that Avery got. Don't let her face fool you, she came to really love them!
Then we exchanged gifts with who's name we drew. Cohen gave me a mug with hot chocolate, candy and bookmarks. They were so adorable. I need bookmarks. I always use receipts or old to do lists so this was a much needed upgrade.
After that gift exchange the Youngs did their homemade gift exchange. I have heard of this tradition before and I absolutely LOVE it. It is something I plan to incorporate with my own family one day. Each family member draws a name of another family member, and then it is their job to make them a homemade, extra thoughtful, gift. I have heard them called love gifts so even though the Young's don't call them that, I will. What was so cool about the love gifts is that they were so thoughtful. For example, Cohen had Avery who's dolls were using old chip bags as sleeping bags. So Cohen had the idea to make Avery sleeping bags for her dolls. He picked out the fabric himself and everything. Or Libby noticed how her Lon hates when his tea gets cold so she and Rebecca made him a mug cover that will keep his tea warmer longer. What was especially sweet for me is that Avery and Camry made me a love gift--even though I wasn't part of their family tradition. They took a book we had double copies of, and folded the paper so that it made an A and then by default also made a W. It looks really cool and was so sweet. I actually accidentally saw it earlier but I assumed it was A for Avery but I had told Lon how cool I thought it was.
This is the first time I have spent Christmas with anyone other than family. Of course I am still missing my friends and family, but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with how well things went today. I’ve been pretty open about the fact that December got off to rough start for me, and equally open about how it has gotten much MUCH better as the month has gone on, but I was still a little nervous about how things would be when it was actual Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, etc. Today was great though. Of course it was different then what I am use too, this is the first time I have spent Christmas with anyone other then family, but it was really special. And I have no reason to think that tomorrow will be any different. :) I can even saw I am honestly feeling excited about it.
Maybe it was only because I was doing actual Christmas shopping but the mall seemed to have an extra cheery holiday feeling to it. They even had Santa walking around, however I avoided him because he was sporting a pretty creepy mask. He really needed to be himself and ditch the mask for the good of everyone. There is one spot on the ground floor level of the mall where you can look up and see hundreds of snowflakes that have been hung from all the different levels. Since that is the closest I will get to snow this year I enjoyed it for a minute or two. I'm not going to lie, it is really pretty and was really nice to be in the "snow" but be warm and cozy too. And not have to worry about black ice and winter driving. It was the best of both worlds. I've been about my regular work (still not allowed to go to colony though) but in-between I have been wrapping presents, sending virtual christmas cards and delivering small "gifts" of simple things like fresh salsa and miniature sodas. Alamalu and Selvi made us some "Happy Christmas" rangoli which as always was beautiful. That is a funny thing about Christmas here though, they always say Happy Christmas and tend to look at us weird when we say Merry Christmas. Some people humor us but regularly, it is Happy Christmas, not Merry Christmas.
I know this is going to sound ultra cheesy but I've seen all kind of little Christmas miracles happening, making it so everything is falling into place. For example, we found out that there will be two kids staying on campus over the Christmas break, UKG Praveenkumar and this sister Elina--who is in 8th Standard I believe. There were a few kids that went home at fall break and never came back. The staff tracked them down, two of them were girls who's mothers were going to marry them off and the other was Elina. She didn't come back because she was caught in the middle of a nasty custody battle between her divorcing parents. So to make a long story short, we were finally able to get her back to campus (as well as her brother Praveenkumar who is a new student) a week before Christmas break started. No one actually told us why they didn't get to go home, but I am assuming that it was too risky to send them back so soon, plus it was most likely to late for travel arrangements to be made.
***As a side note we were able to get at least 1 of the betrothed girls back to campus, I am not positive about the third though.***
Anyway, Rebecca and I didn't find out we would have kids and a staff member here for Christmas until after we had used up all our trips to the mall. Because we are 2 hours out of Chennai and have to be scheduled and driven everywhere we go, we couldn't just run back out-BUT we were able to make it out to Chenglaput, which is only about 1/2 hour away. Rebecca had a friend give her money to use "as she saw fit" so we enlisted that gift to buy gifts for our extra Christmas dwellers. Basically, it was the ultimate secret santa mission--searching random Indian stores (which you can't do alone by the way--you always have at least two workers on either side of you) in Chenglaput, after dark (which always adds more intensity) with all sorts of people. Not really Christmas crowds mind you, just all sorts of people (and livestock) because this is India and India is one ridiculously crowded place. I loved shopping that way though. It was way more authentic then going to a westernized mall, all though we are thankful for our westernized mall too.
Actual Christmas Eve turned out perfectly. I did some Christmas "baking" and by baking I mean making cinnamon and sugar candies almonds. I have never tried anything like that before and as always I was missing ingredients but they still turned out okay. I shared them with whatever staff was left on campus which was fun for me because I was able to come up with something I could do for them that would still fall into a vegetarian diet. One of the good things about life in India is everything is so simple that you can give spoonfuls of candies almonds to people and it is not seen as cheap or lame. We ate normal dinner tonight (aka curry, rice, iddly, veggies and fruit) then most of us (Avery seems to have developed shingles and Praveenkumar hasn't been vaccinated for Chickenpoxs yet so sadly, she and Long had to stay home) set out to the hostel to sing Christmas carols and deliver one Christmas Eve gift to Poongodi (she is the staff who is staying on campus with the two kiddos), Praveenkumar and Elina. Only we couldn't find them. Turns out they were hanging out with Amula and the security guards at the main gate. Except Praveenkumar was who sleeping in the security guard office. All this meant was that our caroling was heard by more then the originally planned on 3 people-which was totally fine. The Youngs can all sing ridiculously well so I just let my voice be stifled by theirs and ""we" sounded amazing if I do say so myself :) We left our friends with some fruit and biscuits, got in our pajamas and went over to the Young's house to start our much anticipated Christmas Eve festivities. The festivities included hot chocolate with donut holes, watching a short nativity movie, and a couple of different gift exchanges.
Our white elephant exchange was perfect--the highlight gift being the mooing rhino-dinosaur thing that Cohen ultimately ended up with. He reminded us that he loves Rhinos-only this one was named Rhiny the Rhino and sadly not Horney the Rhino anymore. Avery loved my maxi pad slippers (she was a good sport at least) and everyone hated the smell of Libby's fish and chips gift because part of it was real dried fish that had started to get moist and smelled absolutely rancid.
I am proud to say that I was the creator of the white elephant gift that Avery got. Don't let her face fool you, she came to really love them!
Then we exchanged gifts with who's name we drew. Cohen gave me a mug with hot chocolate, candy and bookmarks. They were so adorable. I need bookmarks. I always use receipts or old to do lists so this was a much needed upgrade.
After that gift exchange the Youngs did their homemade gift exchange. I have heard of this tradition before and I absolutely LOVE it. It is something I plan to incorporate with my own family one day. Each family member draws a name of another family member, and then it is their job to make them a homemade, extra thoughtful, gift. I have heard them called love gifts so even though the Young's don't call them that, I will. What was so cool about the love gifts is that they were so thoughtful. For example, Cohen had Avery who's dolls were using old chip bags as sleeping bags. So Cohen had the idea to make Avery sleeping bags for her dolls. He picked out the fabric himself and everything. Or Libby noticed how her Lon hates when his tea gets cold so she and Rebecca made him a mug cover that will keep his tea warmer longer. What was especially sweet for me is that Avery and Camry made me a love gift--even though I wasn't part of their family tradition. They took a book we had double copies of, and folded the paper so that it made an A and then by default also made a W. It looks really cool and was so sweet. I actually accidentally saw it earlier but I assumed it was A for Avery but I had told Lon how cool I thought it was.
This is the first time I have spent Christmas with anyone other than family. Of course I am still missing my friends and family, but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with how well things went today. I’ve been pretty open about the fact that December got off to rough start for me, and equally open about how it has gotten much MUCH better as the month has gone on, but I was still a little nervous about how things would be when it was actual Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, etc. Today was great though. Of course it was different then what I am use too, this is the first time I have spent Christmas with anyone other then family, but it was really special. And I have no reason to think that tomorrow will be any different. :) I can even saw I am honestly feeling excited about it.
