Cozy Christmas in the Little Village

Happy New Year! 

Here are some photos from our fun week of Christmas celebration in here.

Said temporary goodbyes at the airstrip on flight day on Friday before Christmas. Giggly girls share big hugs. :)

Celebrated our family Christmas on Christmas Eve with a yummy feast.

Opened some gifts,

Really were quite happy about some of those gifts, 

Played with some packing material.

"What....is.....THIS?!" Phil made a wooden machete (parang) for Quinn - then Nadia wrapped it in pink paper for him. :) Every little boy needs people like them in their lives.

Have parang and kindai, will travel.

His parang is his new favorite toy. :)

Quinn setting the table - for four. :)

Nadia's favorite Christmas gift this year is, hands-down, her new umbrella. :)

St. Niclaus

Fun times here in village land.

So fun, in fact, that it's exhausting. Here, my baby boy can barely keep his eyes open as lunch time approaches these days - as he is now too cool for two naps a day.

Today was St. Niclaus's Day. Yesterday we learned why, as Irene shared with us the German tradition of St. Niclaus.

While waiting for the Ullum's to arrive back here with us in the village, we heard the story of Bishop Niclaus of Turkey who lived around 300 A.D. - and how generous and kind he was. The kids listened with all attention.

Well - the big kids listened. Mr. Baby just ate cookies. :)

We added in a lovely way to our family Christmas tradition yesterday. Thank you, Irene!

Nadia put out her empty shoe (rain boot) for Niclaus to come and fill. (She was appropriately skeptical) :)

She awoke early (um...very early) this morning to find that her boot had been filled with yummy treats. She was very excited about that, and talked about it all day.

 We finished off our day by making Christmas cookies, red and green. (I am wearing clothes. i had just taken a shower, and was still in my sarong).

Quinn and Phil wait patiently for the cookies to be ready!

Jungle All the Way

Saturdays are days for projects around the house in our family. This past Saturday, we tackled our art supplies (and Phil repaired the roof - a much bigger, more important project!). We found that we had lots of broken, blunt and used up crayons.

So, we got to work peeling, sorting and snapping our old crayons.

We put them in little muffin cups.

Set them in the hot oven for a few minutes.

Let them cool, peeled them, and found that we had perfect crayons for our Bitty Man to use!

While we were at it, we chopped up some more crayons.

Then cut out some designs

Since we don't have black paper, i had to color mine in. :)

Laid the bits in like stained glass

Laid in a bit more.

Then melted it with a hot frying pan (because i don't have an iron). It looks messier than it's supposed to be. Whatever. We're in the jungle. Christmasy crayon projects are the best we can do sometimes...

Then on Sunday, we visited some friends and ate durian until we thought we'd pop. Then we brought 8 of those spiky, stinky things home. Then Monday we got 4 more. It's a good thing we like those things... and that we live in a place full of people who like to receive the gift of excess durian! :)