If I had to rank Christmases from previous years & this past one, I would have to say my Christmas at Asha was my “most fun” Christmas. I don’t know if I’ve laughed so much in my life. It was one of those “laugh til you cry” occasions and it made it difficult to feel like we were missing out on anything at home because of all the fun we were having.
We decorated our Christmas tree with fun ornaments we purchased at a Charity Bazaar. We went caroling with the Asha children in the neighborhood to homes with families that served us some dessert specialty they had fixed up. We were all on a sugar-rush by the end of the night considering we hadn’t had much of anything sweet while on the Race.
Christmas Eve—We spent time at a Christmas program for Manipuri people (from Manipur, India) who now live in Bangalore. We sang a lot of carols & Kyle gave a message of joy and experiencing Christmas every day. We went home after the cake cutting at midnight—which helped to bring in Christmas day. Kyle read us a book that Elf Judy delivered to him and delivered in India under our Christmas tree entitled, “The Adventures of Cupcake the Baby Hippopotamus.”
With money we had left in our budget for the month we bought the children gifts for Christmas. We found everything from soccer and basketballs to fun games like Candyland, where they can practice their colors, to flashcards to practice words and shapes. I might have also found fun play toy dinosaurs for Senderson, the youngest of all the kids. We found beautiful scarves for the girls & gave to oldest boys tickets to a soccer game in which our men took them out for a man date and sent Morong & Sendme on a date away from the kids for an evening later in the week while we threw a pizza party for the kids and watched Peter Pan & The Incredibles. We also spent a day at the park with the kids, had a picnic, and went to the Gemini Circus in the afternoon to give them a day out on the town; which is a rare thing for them to get a day out. They enjoyed it and all the fun animals they were able to see. Many of them were slipping into a deep slumber on the bus ride back; this only enabled us to count the day as a success.
Christmas day was full of nothing less than goodness. We drew names among my team and did a gift exchange. We went to church and had Chicken Biriyani, an exquisite Indian dish, afterwards at the church. We took a little time to rest in the afternoon look at fun photos and videos from the Race so far and then went back to Asha to play with the kids. There were games upon games that were played. We had a Christmas service at Asha in the evening in which the Children performed a Christmas play that I taught them. We played a lot of native games and spent time with our Indian family. We had a blast. There are many videos to prove all the laughter, but considering I’m in Africa and the upload rate for videos here would take 5 years, I’ll have to save that for another time, just know all was splendid.
Hope you had a Merry Christmas!
