Christmas Festivities

It's been busy around here! Thankfully it's all been a lot of fun and helped us enjoy the anticipation and celebration of Christ's birth. Noah has had so much fun preparing for Christmas - he especially loved the advent candles and calendar and reminded us to do it every day. He now understands the story of the Nativity quite well and playing with the pieces of our advent calendar really helped. He has also really enjoyed the music of Christmas, often asking for us to play "Feliz Navidad" (which you'll see in the video - every part with him and/or Michael and the guitar is him playing along to the song). At bedtime, he would ask for the "Glory Song," or "Angels we Have Heard on High" - he sings along with the "Glooooria" part.

The festivities began with Noah's preschool performance - Noah was an "angel" (but we already knew that(c:). He danced with his class to the songs "Campanas de Belén," (Bells of Bethlehem) "Te Quiero" (I love you) and "Cristo Me Ama" (Jesus loves me) - and he did the best he's ever done at a school performance! It was darling.

Then, Sunday, he was an "angel" again for the church Navitiy play - this day, though, he was not SO angelic - the video taken missed the temper tantrum in the middle, where he laid face down on the floor. But regardless, it was cute to see all the little ones participating with their costumes.

Tuesday evening we hosted our first musical Christmas party! This has been a long standing tradition in Michael's family, and missing it so much, we thought we'd try it here. Michael made song sheets with many classic carols, just translated. It was so fun to share this sweet tradition with so many of our Peruvian friends. The party was complete with the Peruvian tradition of special spiced hot chocolate, always accompanied by panetón. We stayed up late after the party to finish making our gifts to friends - chocolate truffles and chocolate dipped macaroons - made with all the love and care we could pack into them. (c:

Wednesday, Christmas Eve, we prepared food to bring to the Wards and enjoyed celebrating with just our missionary team that afternoon. Michael brought our piano, Jim played the guitar, and we sang all our favorite carols in English this time. Sara Ward led the kids through a special advent book and let each of them participate in the readings or placement of nativity characters in the stable scene. Noah fell asleep in the car, so we couldn't remind him of what would happen in the morning. He was so tired that he slept through the other big Peruvian tradition - a huge firework display throughout the whole city! They are all personal fireworks, nothing official, but many are as big as the professional kinds, and are launched from every block and every street. Michael and I grabbed our hot chocolate and went to watch up on our roof - it was impressive - and LOUD.

On Christmas morning, Noah came in to sleep with us at 4:45 - a sleeping issue we're working on (c: About an hour later, he was still with us, so I crept out of bed to lay on the couch and wait to catch that first moment of him seeing the Christmas tree with all the presents under it on video. We should add here that we are so grateful for the ability to have presents and a Christmas tree. We know there are so many Peruvians who do not have either. Thank you to those of you who even took the trouble to send things or cards to us! It means so much, being so far from home during the holidays.

I had to tell Noah to look before he realized that there were gifts. Then he said that "Santa Claus came because he was kind!" (Some other Santa quotes this month include "Santa Claus is coming to Baby Jesus too!" and "I love Jesus. I love Santa Claus too!" One day he'll figure it all out, but for now we love his sweet imagination.)

We took our time opening presents one by one, enjoying the thoughtfulness of each. Then we had a special pancake breakfast followed by a very lazy day of talking to family and playing at the park - on a gorgeous summer day! Noah went to bed early after skipping his nap, so Michael and I had time to finish up our evening with a good game of Scrabble by the light of our advent wreath and Christmas tree. While he indeed beat me again, it was close!

Enjoy the highlights video of all of the fun.