Merry Christmas

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Hello Everyone!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. It was great to get to talk to some of you during the holiday season. I had a great Christmas here in South Africa. While it didn’t feel like Christmas and it felt a bit strange to tell people Merry Christmas, it was still a really fun day. I spent Christmas Eve in my kitchen baking up a storm. I got a late start due to sleeping in a bit and getting in a quick run, but I managed in one day to make an eggnog pie, a batch of banana bread muffins, a loaf of gluten free bread, a batch of gluten free corn muffins, and 2 batches of sugar cookies. I love cooking so I had a blast with my Christmas music and my favorite apron. I baked until the evening when I grabbed a batch of cookies and headed to the hospital to visit the kids who were still in the children’s ward on Christmas. Another friend from Church Toyin joined Graham, Jean and I. On Christmas the hospital tries to get most kids out and home for the holidays so the kids who were still there were more serious cases. Lately when we go to the hospital the kids are out of their beds and running around like little crazed monsters, this time they were more subdued. We sang Christmas songs, colored and played with some of the toys we brought for them. After leaving the hospital we all went to Toyin’s place for some Christmas Eve snacks. I got home about 9 and had a quick chat with my mom and dad while watching Christmas movies. Christmas morning I woke up nice and early to get ready to go and still have time to call my parents while opening my presents before church. It was a good thing I got up early because I ended up on the phone for about an hour talking to family on their Christmas Eve. I tried talking to my cousins kids but only the oldest seemed “with it” enough to hold a conversation. The younger ones seemed to be on the downside of a sugar high! After chatting with my family I went to Church service then hurried home to grab my treats for Christmas lunch at the Land’s home. Drew Land is my pastor at Hope Church and I have babysat for him and Megan’s kids a couple times so I was excited to head over there. Christmas Lunch ended up being mostly Americans, most of which had been living in SA for a long time, but it was still fun. For the first time the Afrikaans couple looked confused at some of our phrases and references to US states. After lunch we played Cranium which was a blast especially since we were 5 Americans, 2 Afrikaners, 1 Zulu and 1 Dutch. All the languages and cultures turned out to make the game a good laugh. I didn’t get home till evening and I have to admit I was exhausted! I was struggling to stay away until my parents called. Unfortunately even after having called ahead to talk ingredients with the hostess I still must have gotten into some gluten and I spent the day after Christmas feeling pretty bad. Thankfully I had gotten a movie and a season of Big Bang Theory on dvd so I spent most of the day on the couch. I am now trying to get back to work. Today is a lovely hot but windy day which seems to have blown away some humidity so I am feeling good. I woke up early and went for a swim then went to work at the coffee shop. I hope you all are recovering from Christmas and looking forward to the New Year. I am still in shock that at the end of this week it will be 2010!

Happy New Year

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