Tis’ the Season….

To be busy!!!! I thought the holiday season was hectic back home! It is a different kind of busyness here- Christmas is a really good time for having parties and other events to invite people out to share with them why and how we celebrate Christmas. I helped CCC go and invite students out to their Christmas event; I guess they have better results when Americans and other foreigners ask students to come out. So I was glad to help! Bishkek is THE college/university central for Central Asia- there are students from almost everywhere- India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, China, Kazakhstan, and other neighboring countries!! For several days before the event we went to different places passing out invitations to students. At the same time, we were getting ready and preparing for our English club Christmas events. We had two events- one just during English club time, and another on the 26th of December, for all the groups that meet at the Development Center (where we have English club). It seemed that Christmas sneaked up on me, and the next thing I knew it was Sunday and Christmas Eve was the very next day!!
Monday, we had our team Christmas party, I made lasagna! Yum! We had a gift exchange and white elephant game. It was fun. For Christmas Eve, I was invited to Rebecca’s place; there were eight other single women from the States there, most of whom I met for the first time, and we ate pizza, decorated gingerbread houses and then watched- “It’s A Wonderful Life”. It was a good time! When I arrived home, it was about 11:30pm and I realized that I hadn’t even had a chance to decorate the small Christmas tree in my room! So I did that, and placed the gifts that I received under the tree. On Christmas day, I opened my presents and later Ira and I went to Zareena’s house, where we made more pizza and other foods, played some games and watched a movie. It was good to just hang out with a small group of friends! Though, we took some time out to go over to the internet café so I could call my family (being Christmas morning EST). Maybe not my ideal place to share Christmas morning with my family, but it was good! The next morning, I had to return to the office to get things and head out to the orphanage to help decorate for the Christmas program there. Unfortunately I could not stay for the program as I had to head back to the office right afterward to bake cookies for our English party that evening! The party was great! We had about 26 people come out! We ate “tacos” (Kyrgyz style), and cookies, tea, and some other things. We played some games and I shared about what my family and I usually do to celebrate Christmas in America, and then a couple local people shared about why this time of year is important to them and why they celebrate it- what they thought of it before and now that they know the real reason for the season! It was rather cold where we were at, but no one left early! I was a little surprised, but glad that no one did. At the end, because we were so cold, we had a little dance contest. Needless to say, I was wiped out by time I got home!! And for the next couple of days I tried to rest and recoup!