Merry Christmas!

Christmas this year was a completely new experience for me. It was really hard to be away from my family, but it was also a great day. It started out with me waking up at 6 o'clock, partially because the call to prayer has been waking me up in the morning and partially because I always wake up early on Christmas. (I blame this on the fact that my youngest sister is 8 years younger than me so I've always been around a kid who is excited to wake up on Christmas morning and I never had to grow out of that stage!) I'm not even sure what my excitement was about this year. There wasn't anything that I was desperately hoping was under the tree, in fact, I wasn't even really expecting any gifts, but I was just excited for the day based on ritual, I guess! It was still dark out, and I was pretty sure that when my friend told me to come over "whenever" in the morning that she didn't mean 6am before any of them were up! So, I decided to finish slicing the potatoes I was making for dinner. This was the first year that I was fully in charge of a dish for the Christmas meal- thus began my Christmas feeling like an adult. However, that feeling fell to the floor with my Christmas tree when I knocked it off the coffee table, whoops! Maybe I am still part kid!

When it was finally a decent time, I went over to spend the morning with my surrogate family. And really, not much can beat spending Christmas with a three year old. Especially this little boy.

H was so excited to open his presents, and after each item he would ask, "Can we open it and play with it?"  He probably would have been just as happy with one present that he could have played with immediately!

Little N, who is almost 1, was just her cute self and was much more into her bottle that the presents around her!

The day seemed to last such a long time. In fact, Christmas day almost always feels like the longest day of the year to me, which of course is a wonderful thing! I'm glad that didn't change as I've grown into an adult :) Later on, I went to complete my potatoes and put them in the oven and popped over to the store to buy a drink for the evening. Yep, the stores were all open here! It was kind of a holiday, but most things were business as usual. Most who even celebrate Christmas celebrate the Coptic Christmas on January 7th. Waiting for the potatoes to finish, another family came over to exchange gifts. I think it's a sign of growing up when you are super excited about getting an oven mitt and sharp knife for Christmas like I was!

We then headed to a get together with more friends where we had an amazing dinner (my favorite dish was probably the broccoli salad!) and wonderful time with friends.

And as I sit here reflecting on the last few days and eating my cornflakes (a Christmas present!) I realize that although most of the things I did had adult job descriptions that I still saw a lot of it through child-like eyes, and I hope that I can continue to live life like that, because, as Jesus said, we must be like children in order to enter His Kingdom.