Over the Hump, and on to Christmas!

Well, sometime early this month, we hit our half way point.   We're now 'over the hump' and flying through the last half of our mission.   And speaking of flying, I've been trying to find time to finish this post for a couple of weeks!   This holiday season has been pretty full!


And now....it's almost Christmas!   The day after Thanksgiving, Elder Meese bought us some sweet little star lights to line the interior of our windows.   We bought a couple of berry wreaths, and 'voila!' our bungalow became the first on the block to light up for Christmas!   Well, we are still 'the first on the block' (" it's those daft Americans across the street, Edith").   It appears exterior decoration is not all that common in our area.   (We've got spirit, yes we do.  Christmas spirit, how about you?)  Well, it still makes me happy every time we drive up to our home.

We've done a few very 'Christmasy' activities in the last couple of weeks.
we took Jason and Jade to the Nativity Display in Chorley.   It's a lot like the one in Kaysville, but they brought in hoards of beautiful pines so it looked like you were in a forest!   In one room, you could be part of a nativity scene yourself, so we couldn't resist!

Not exactly authentic, but we had a great time changing costumes and
setting up different scenes.   Jade also made a beautiful angel.   I'll have to include that.

There were hundreds of nativities
in the display, but one of my favorites was this one from the
'children's room' - you gotta love
that creativity!

One of the missionaries' favorite
traditions:  Zone Christmas 'training' at the mission home!   Sis. Preston prepares a scrumptious dinner for
the 25 people in our zone.   And, get ready for this....she does it ten days in a row.   True - the Prestons throw an all-day training and party for ten groups of 25 missionaries each!
Amazing....

Sis. Preston's organizational ability is one
answer to 'how in the world does she do it?'



 

We also got sweet notes from the Schleckman 'cuzzins' party that made us feel more connected to home.   Had to make them part of the decor.

Here's another of our efforts to preserve Christmas 'tradition'!   Some buttermilk candy and holly!   Only....English food coloring is totally natural and....not too effective.   So a whole bottle of green left us with sort of 'mustard piles' with red icing drops (they've never heard of red hots).   Oh well, it's the thought!


And now, I'm going to close this post for the moment.   Because it's 11:20 pm, and I'm way past mission guidelines for bed, and I may not have another 'window' for a few days!   So Merry pre-Christmas from the Meeses!