Christmas Season

I love that even without snow and in a primarily non-Christian country, it still felt an awful lot like Christmas here! Here are some of the great things we got to do in December:

ILCM Christmas party with Santa

The ILCM is the International Ladies' Club of Macau, which sounds like an awfully fancy name but is basically an English-speaking group for expats in Macau that focuses on helping charities here and providing support for people like us. I like them most for their facebook page, where I ask tons and tons of random questions (like how to find gravy and other important things). They put together a little Christmas activity for the kids and we and some of our neighbors went. Santa was there and it was interesting to hear Haven talk about Santa. We're not pushy about whether he is or isn't real, but after the activity she was asking me things like how Santa gets in without a chimney.

The girls with their gift from Santa

There were face paints there free to use, and I let Jozie and Haven have some fun with my face:

Gingerbread House

Every year we make a gingerbread house and kits were sold here in Macau too. This was a good kit that smelled deliciously like gingerbread. I didn't set up the house ahead of time so the wet frosting started to slip after we decorated it. Luckily our man Chad got his power tools out and screwed it back together, then took the screws out after the frosting hardened. We still ate it on Christmas day and it was yummy!

See the screw holes?

School Christmas Program

I really enjoyed Jozie's school Christmas program. Since the school is run by Seventh Day Adventists they're pretty big on Christmas. They put together scenes from Christ's birth in several rooms of the school and we went from room to room watching a small skit and hearing a song. It was really beautifully done. Then we got to see Jozie and her class perform on the big stage as well. They asked for volunteers at one point and Haven and I ran up to sing a rockingly loud version of "Jingle Bells." It was awesome!

Jozie and her class were angels visiting the shepherds. She's here with Joelyn, who is from Thailand.

I included this because it's so interesting. These are keyboards powered by the kids' breath.

LDS 2nd Branch Christmas Party

There was a Christmas party at the end of church. I actually got out my guitar and played a couple songs, but we didn't get any pictures.

There were a ton more people here than usual, but this gives you a pretty good idea of our branch. Almost everyone is from the Philippines, with a handful of other people mixed in.

This girl's name is Courtney and the girls love her. She recently graduated from Primary.

This is our Primary class, although usually it's just Jozie and Haven and the boy on the left (Raven).

Our Anniversary

We spent our anniversary with the kids this year. We tried to go to what we've heard is the only pretty good Mexican restaurant in Macau (the Mexicana), but alas, it was Monday and after we got there we learned they're closed on Mondays (gotta love the random retail closures in other countries...). So, we opted for a restaurant called Pinocchio's instead. It's in a huge building in Old Taipa and I've been curious about it for some time, so we tried it out. Turns out it seems to be a lot of American food with a Chinese twist, a twist I didn't care for at all. Oh well. We're still happy to be married to each other - nine years now!

At Pinocchio's

We went to Serrdura for the first time for dessert. It was like frozen frosting in a cup with fine pie crust dust on top. Not so good.

We passed by the Rua Dos Bem Casados (the street of the well married) on our way to dinner. Very appropriate!

That afternoon since the kids were out of school we went to visit the decorations in the major casinos near our house here. It was so fun! Doesn't this picture look like we're back in Utah?

Fake snow!

I thought the snow graffiti was super interesting, especially with the mix of English and Chinese!

This lady wanted a picture with Haven.

This house was made out of real gingerbread!

Claire loved it, especially after she discovered she could pull candy canes off, but then we had to leave...

The girls would pop their heads up into this window, which their adoring fans got a kick out of!

There was free gingerbread decorating at Sands Cotai Central!

We also stayed to see the parade.

This is in City of Dreams.

Other Stuff -

We are kind of really into Christmas trees here, I think because we got married at Christmastime and then for years we went into the woods and chopped down our own tree. Also each year we add a couple special ornaments about events from that year, so our tree has really become a symbol of our love and our life as a family. So anyway, we like Christmas trees. I had brought a fake tree here but Chad really didn't like it, so we decided to get one shipped. Apparently this tree came from Oregon then went to Taiwan and Hong Kong before getting to us. It smelled lovely.

Chad brought our fake tree to the nursing home across the courtyard from us, so it got put to good use.

We made caramels to give away. This was the first time I made them and they were yum!!

We brought some to our neighbor friends and sang Jingle Bells to them while ringing these bells as hard as we could.

We had a little party at our house for any neighbors who wanted to stop by. It was really fun!

We visited Ice World, which is a cool exhibit at the Venetian with awesome statues carved from ice, including a slide!

Unfortunately, Claire wasn't allowed to go in (I get so frustrated by the rules here...). She stayed outside with another mom who couldn't bring her two year old in. Claire didn't like that so much.

We ran into this guy outside. Pretty cool!

And then we were serenaded by these hilarious cantadores from Spain:

Here are a bunch of pictures of decor around town:

This tree is in our lobby. Honestly it's pretty shabby.

We were at Subway one day (yes we're still totally in love with that place) when the manager came to spray decorations on the wall and let Jozie and Haven help.

We managed to snap this shot before a guard came over and told us we were too close.

Santa in a hat!

This is in the roundabout near our house so we see it all the time. Really cool!

This merry-go-round actually turns!