Our Christmas

Well, we survived. And by that I mean even though it was tough being away from "home" we were able to enjoy ourselves and cherish just being together as a family. Hopefully next year we'll be more settled and can continue some of the traditions we've enjoyed the last few years and maybe even create a few more.

Luckily our kids didn't get the memo that you're allowed to wake up your parents at any hour of the morning on Christmas. They slept until about 9am and then we all went downstairs to enjoy breakfast at the hotel. You gotta love free breakfast! The kids didn't even ask to open presents before breakfast. We went back to our room and were about to open presents when Damien's family called. We talked to them for a while and then were about to open presents again when my family called! Poor kids! They were so patient and still managed to say have a few good conversations before they were asking, "Is it time now?" We enjoyed having my parents stay on Skype to watch us open presents. Next time we need to get another computer and have Damien's family watch and it will be just like we're at home! Well, sort of.

Breakfast Christmas morning.

There are no such things as stockings in Chiang Mai! Seriously, I looked at a million place and couldn't find anything. But that's ok, Damien's socks, some tape and a magic marker worked perfectly! I couldn't believe how much they stretched!
Sora wasn't being incredibly cooperative for pictures. :-)
Busy, busy, busy. Sora enjoyed picking up her presents and carrying them around rather than opening them. :-) These are our special "Christmas Around the World" gifts sent from amazing generous people at our home church in Virginia. This is the third year we've been a part of it and every year I'm blown away at people's generosity. I wrote a post about it two years ago...it's so much fun to go back and read these.
The boys singing "The 12 Days on Christmas" to Nina and Pops.
The view of the mountain from our room. It's a lot cooler than it looks in the picture.
We wanted to have a little birthday party for Jesus so we went to the kids favorite place - Swensen's. We don't go often because it's expensive - well at least for Chiang Mai standards - about $2 for a kids sundae. We ordered the "happy birthday" sundae which had a candle and we sang happy birthday to Jesus.

So in the more touristy area (where our hotel was) there was definitely an attempt at Christmas. I was surprised how many families were visiting. I guess a lot of people take trips for Christmas. This was one attempt at a Christmas tree. Not quite right but still pretty.

Walking around the Night Bazaar looking for somewhere to eat dinner.