HAPPY LATE HOLIDAYS everyone!! I hope you all had an amazing Christmas and wonderful holiday season. Christmas looked a bit different for me this year!
The 12 days spent before Christmas were packed full for my household, which consists of 3/6 of our squad teams! We are currently living in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa.
We spent the 2 upcoming weeks before Christmas packing in as many Holiday traditions as we could. Being away from home for Christmas was new for each one of us, so we wanted to make it feel as close to home as possible. We spent the nights making stockings, watching almost all the holiday movies, making cookies for Santa, Christmas trivia and my favorite, white elephant.
CHRISTMAS EVE:
Waking up on Christmas eve to 87 degree weather was new for me. While in Florida its never THAT cold during Christmas, its definitely never this warm. We ate some breakfast and made our way to a “waterfall”! The waterfall was more of a cliff jumping- swimming hole. It was about 20 minutes away from our house and it was incredibly fun. We spent the morning & afternoon jumping off rocks and zip lining into this big swimming hole. On the way home we stopped at McDonalds & started a new Christmas Eve tradition— MCFLURRYS!! Then we came home and got ready for dinner. A tradition in my family is Christmas Eve dinner. Everyone gets dressed up and we all eat dinner together as one big family. Naturally, I assumed that was everyones tradition and put some cute clothes on & went down stairs to find everyone just hanging out. I guess for everyone else Christmas dinner is the tradition ! I laughed at myself and felt like I was with my family at home because I knew they would have done the same thing :). For dinner, we had an amazing woman come from Nigeria & she cooked dinner for us. It was in the Top 10 best foods I’ve eaten in my life. Then we made & decorated cookies for SANTA! & all set up our sleeping pads on the second floor of our house and had one big mega sleepover. We put on Its A Wonderful Life and spent the night talking about all of our favorite Christmas memories.
The day of:
I woke up at 5:30 and yelled MERRY CHRISTMAS then fell right back asleep(I don’t really remember this but I took a funny video on my phone, lol). Then I really woke up around 7 and ate a light breakfast then headed to church. We live about a 20 minute walk from our church, Victory Church. I love the community and the people we have already met there, they make us feel so welcomed and loved. After church, we headed home for brunch! We had donuts, eggs and French toast casserole. After that we headed upstairs to open presents and our homemade stockings. We decided that the 8 of us on my team would all buy each other gifts to make it feel like home! It was SO fun buying presents for my teammate. This year especially I found a lot of joy in the giving part of Christmas than the receiving. Following presents we did our secret Santa !! We have a total of 25 girls who live and work at Global from my squad so we decided early on to all draw a name and do secret Santa! That was fun because we tried to keep it on the cheaper side so the presents were really creative. Then, we finished watching Its a Wonderful Life because everyone fell asleep the night before watching it. After this, I got the chance to talk to my family 🙂 it was super bittersweet to be able to talk to them and hear all about the Christmas that is so familiar to me. Being away for Christmas was kinda weird. I wasn’t to sad because looking at the big picture of life im not really sure if ill ever be able to spend another Christmas in Africa again!! & I know next year I will 100% miss the Christmas I got to experience this year. The people here have become family so being here is so bittersweet. After that we had a big Christmas dinner. At first, we all thought the dinner would be just an average dinner. Oh boy how we were wrong. Thanks to our fierce cooking experts, dinner was something special. We had all the classics, green bean casserole, cheesy potatoes, rotisserie chicken, Mac & cheese and of course, BREAD. After dinner we had some friends come over and we all watched the sunset together & danced 🙂 every night we love to sit and watch the sky go to sleep. It’s something i’ve begun to cherish so much here and am thankful for it everyday. Around 8ish How the Grinch Stole Christmas was on brought to us by 2 amazing brothers who live in our house. I watched for a little then got to talk to some of my friends back home:) overall Christmas was unforgettable.
NEW YEARS:
New years was one of my most favorite days I have ever lived on this earth. It began very chill, we went to coffee shop and just hung out for a while. Got to spend some time reflecting on my year & thinking about what’s to come with good company. I can’t express to you how much the friendships i’ve already made mean to me. The people I get the pleasure of traveling around the world with are some of the coolest people i’ve ever met. After talking for hours and laughing about all the funny things we have been through, we headed home. Around 7, we went to downtown Jeffrey’s bay which is about 5 minutes from our house. We went to the little amphitheater and watched local bands, singers and dance teams perform. The culture in Jeffrey’s bay is so fun. People were dancing and singing and truly just didn’t care about anything else except what was happening right in front of them. At one point a local DJ came out and I got to dance with all the street kids. These kids have absolutely nothing. Some don’t have homes, families or know where there next meal is going to come from but it really doesn’t matter to them. in the moment all they wanted to do was dance and jump around. I will hold that memory in my heart forever. Around 11:30 we went down to the beach to watch the fireworks. All night people kept saying the fireworks would go off in one place on the right side of beach so I was prepared for a regular firework show. When the clock hit 12:00 fireworks were coming from every direction. I laid down on the sand and watched the sky light up. I have been through a lot of Fourth of July’s and Memorial days but nothing compares to the rockets that were exploding in the sky that night. At one point the people right next to us were lighting off fireworks and it came flying at us… I live to tell the story. There is not other way I would have wanted to begin 2019.
UPDATE:
IM FULLY FUNDED!! I couldn’t have done it without all of your amazing prayers and support. I can’t thank you enough for everything all of you have done for me. I truly wouldnt be able to do any of this with out you and am beyond thankful for YOU everyday. If anyone has any prayer request or just wants to chat- leave a comment below!!
Make today count, HELEN <3
