Kim and Jeremy in Thailand

Merry Christmas, everyone!! We hope you have had a wonderful holiday with all your friends and family!! We had a good Christmas here.

On Christmas Eve, our church had a candlelight service at 11:00. It was a beautiful service, with lots of Christmas music, and we took communion. The only bad thing about the service was that it wasn't over until 12:45am, which is well past our normal bedtime!!

Then on Christmas morning, the Fishers picked us up early to take us to church, which was at a different location than normal and we didn't know quite how to get there. Angela was in charge of the music, and she did a really nice job. She even arranged a medley of Christmas carols for her and her parents to sing. We had a small orchestra, and Jeremy, Linda and I sang. It was a nice service.

After church, we went our separate ways to do our 'family Christmas' time. Jeremy and I opened up all the gifts that had been under our tree. Our families were so generous, and it was really great to have packages to open! Jeremy had gone to look for wrapping paper, but all they had was this kind of 70's-ish motif, so if you see it in the pictures, that's why! Jeremy's mom sent us her homemade bon-bons. They arrived in a lot better shape than you'd think after such a long trip, and taste delicious!! My parents sent quite a few movies, so we now have ER, Seinfeld, and Mystery Science Theater to watch. It's exciting to have new things-I think I have watched all the movies I brought with at least twice.

After we opened gifts, we went to the Fishers' house. We kind of talked and snacked for awhile, then Jeremy and Gene went to pick up the food. You couldn't really cook a Christmas dinner in Thailand unless you wanted to shell out a small fortune, but a lot of the western restaurants provide a buffet or take-away option. We had Thanksgiving dinner at one of the restaurants, but we really wanted to eat Christmas dinner in a house. So Gene and Jeremy went to pick up the meals we had ordered. We have some nice pictures of our Christmas dinner table set up with about a dozen styrofoam cartons! It was a little nontraditional, but the food tasted great. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, roast vegetables, and even gravy to turn the meal into a soup! Plus, we had brought fruit and Holly brought a salad, so there was no shortage of food on our table.

Once we were stuffed full, Holly, Jeremy, Angela, and I played Scrabble for awhile, then we all watched the Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. It was very cute. By the time the movie was over, we were ready for dessert, which were two pies-pumpkin and strawberry. Not too many places in the world where strawberries are in season for Christmas! Both pies were delicious.

After dessert, we sat around and talked for quite awhile. The Fishers called Genie (another daughter who is still in Wheaton) and I even got to say hi to her. After that, Jeremy and I ran home to get Seinfeld, which we had just opened up, and we watched a few episodes and some hilarious bloopers.

All in all, it was a good day. It didn't feel particularly Christmassy to me, but I think that made it a little easier to be so far from home. And Jeremy and I came up to school this morning and we got to call our families while it's still Christmas in America, which was great.

We'd love to hear about your Christmas, too! Email us or post a comment to tell us what you did.

And, of course, what you've all been waiting for: there are pictures up in the gallery of all our Christmas celebrations!!

Yesterday, we took a trip with a group from Grace up to Doi Inthanon. It's the highest point in Thailand, about 8400 feet elevation, and at the top they have some monuments to the current king and queen of Thailand. It was beautiful, but it was also COLD. I wore three shirts, a sweater, and two sweatshirts. We could even see our breath! I know all of you midwesterners are probably snickering right about now, but 55 degrees felt pretty brutal to us!

I put up some pictures in the photo gallery of the trip. The scenery was actually pretty amazing; definitely take a look. Also, there is an album I've been wanting to put up for awhile-Thai mannequins. That probably doesn't sound terribly interesting, but I assure you it is!! Nowhere else in the world will you find such...colorful mannequins!!

Our schedule today got thrown off a bit by exterminators. See, the way it works here is that our landlord (who we've never met and don't even know the name of, actually) calls the exterminator and they come out to spray. We find out when they are at the gate and let us know the landlord paid for them to come. I was in the middle of baking cookies. So we frantically brought in the laundry that was hanging outside, and while they sprayed out there, cleaned up the kitchen and put away the cookies. They sprayed all over, in every room, so I'll be crashing at the Fishers' tonight to avoid having some freak allergic reaction. We opened up all the windows and turned on some fans, so by the time Jeremy gets there it should be somewhat aired out. But it was definitely a surprise.

This has been a crazy week, but in a good way. Holly's parents arrived, and we've been doing a bunch of touristy stuff with them. We went to the new Night Safari on Wednesday, while it was still free. It's very well done, and reminds me of a lot of western zoos. The only difference was that you could get a lot closer to the animals...like holding live tiger cubs to get your picture taken. We also had a lot of Christmas parties, between church and school and staff functions. Everything's been kind of a blur.

For your enjoyment, we've got two new photo albums this week. One is from the night safari, but the more entertaining one is probably the Thai Christmas trees album. You'll get a kick out of it, I'm sure!

Okay, so I've been to at least three Christmas parties now, we've lit the advent candle the last three Sundays, I've given final exams, we've been singing Christmas carols, I saw the 50 foot tall Christmas tree at the mall (so what if it's blue), we have Christmas music playing in the office, and I've both sent and received Christmas gifts. But still, deep down, I feel like we're all playing a game out here!! The lack of snow, lack of weather colder than about 68 degrees, and plans to go to the new night safari tonight are all contributing to this phenomenon. Have you ever put Christmas music on in July, and kind of revelled in it, even though you knew it was the wrong time of year? That's kind of what it feels like to me. It's fun, but it doesn't feel like it's really Christmas. Maybe early September at best.

So much has been happening here lately...today was the first day of finals, Holly's parents arrived from Kansas, a few of our staff are in the hospital (pneumonia and appendicitis), we're having our soccer celebration party today, three student teachers are leaving, other staff are going home for Christmas, and in between we're trying to have Christmas parties!! It's crazy, but fun.

I put up a few photo albums today in the gallery. Enjoy!