The Ghost of Christmas Past

Phew! It's been almost a month since I last updated this thing! Sheesh. I knew this would happen. I've never been good at keeping a consistent blog. So, a lot has happened since Christmas!! But I'll pick up where I left off, and attempt to keep my stories 'n' such in order.



So. Christmas. I never did post any photos of the dinner we had for our neighbours and friends.

I'll do that! But I'll tell you a bit, first, about what Christmas looked like for me here in Cambodia. On Christmas Eve, my team piled into a tuktuk and went out for Indian food. We happened to discover one of theee bessst Indian places I have ever had the priviledge of experiencing. Yup. So, that was fun, and definetely a first for me. Indian food on Christmas Eve. Usually I'm sitting around the coffee table in the living room back home, which candles and twinkly lights and christmas music, which my family, eating finger foods, and talking the ears off of each other. But this year things were just a little different! After devouring our very delicious Indian meal, we crossed the street and hung out at the park. The park is basically a big, open area, both grassy and paved, with benches, a few trees here and there, a pond, fountain, you know the type. We just walked around, sat around, talked, did head stands in the grass...? Laurissa and I were strolling about, and passed a group of Khmer people sitting by the pond eating birthday cake. One of the men jumped up and told us that it was his birthday, and so I broke into song, of course!, and they offered us cake. We talked for a while, and ended up inviting them to our dinner which took place the following evening. When we got back to the base, we hung out and Richard blew up a sterile glove and put it on his head. Uh, yeah... and then we all just did our own thing, some of us watched Elf. I recall staying up till 3 that night wrapping gifts for my team and making cards for them. Which is...totally like me. I tend to do everything I can last minute. Oh well, I get things done, and that's what matters!...? Maybe?



Anyway. The next morning my team had a BIG beautiful breakfast. We ate loads of yummy fruit and crepes and mmm!! It was delish! Then, we cleaned up, and headed to the roof to give each other presents, which we all purchased over a period of weeks prior to Christmas, at the trusty Russian Market...

We spent a good chunk of time up there, and it was fun to see what everyone came up with for gifts. Let's just say...we had some good laughs! After our gift exchange things got ccccrrrrazy! We all went about our designated tasks for the day, in prep for the big dinner! It was a busy busy day! It was cool to see it all come together! We set up tables in front of the base, and put up some twinkly lights and fun stuff, set out all the food and drinks, and waited for our guests! Little by little, they all showed up! Mostly everyone we invited came! And it was so so beautiful to see. Just seeing all the people that we've been talking to, meeting, getting to know, during our time here was awesome. I had warm fuzzies the entire night :)



I was exhausted after staying up til 3 am the previous night, and only getting like 3 hours of sleep and then going going going the next day, but it was so awesome and went so smoothly, I didn't have much of a chance, or a reason to be a tired ol' grump. So many people here on the base pitched in and helped us out with preparations and cleaning up, too, which we were all so very thankful for!!



So, all in all, my Christmas did not feel like Christmas, but it was an amazing experience, and I'll never ever forget it!!!