Merry Christmas to All

Christmas is less than one week away and sometimes it is hard to remember that Christmas is so close. Living in a country where Christmas is not celebrated as a national holiday or a religious holiday by most of the country is an interesting experience.

On the one hand, retailers are not trying to convince you that the only way to show someone that you love them is to spend more than you can afford. On the other hand, no one is talking about Christmas or discussing their plans. The little signs of Christmas, like lights going up, Christmas trees appearing at the local market, and Christmas music on the radio are absent. You are left to create your own Christmas spirit.

I am reminded of one Christmas on my mission in Taiwan 30 some years ago. I was serving in a very small Branch way out in the country. The Branch had all of five members, any two of which might be missing from Sunday services since they were fighting with each other. I remember that the only Christmas decorations my companion and I had in our apartment were two small plastic wreaths of Christmas lights hung above the desks we used to study and write our reports. There were no signs of Christmas outside our apartment, only a few things inside, but we had the Christmas spirit anyway.

Unlike that Christmas so many years ago, we have so much to help us remember the Christmas spirit here in India. We have a lot of Christmas inside our home. There is our Christmas tree:

And our stockings, just waiting to be filled by Santa:

We have our advent tree that gets an ornament hung each day until Christmas:

We even have our book that we read a Christmas story out of each night:

We also had our ward Christmas party. The building was decorated wonderfully:

Each auxiliary put together a small performance of something. The primary sung several songs, the young women sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Holly Jolly Christmas, Rebecca and her friend Ganae Osorio sung a wonderful duet of Winder Wonderland. But the Oscar performance goes to the young men who wrote and performed an original play entitled Santa Meets the Missionaries. Watch by clicking here.

Michelle and her friends made gingerbread houses. Of course, gingerbread and all the traditional US candies were a bit hard to come by. So they substituted crackers and Indian candy. Still it looks like they had fun!

But most of all, we have our family and friends. Brenton will be here on Tuesday evening and we are so very excited to have him come. Although we know that our other family and friends will not be joining us here in India, know that our hearts are with you all. We look forward to talking with everyone this weekend, so get on Skype or at least call our phone!

Some Cool News

On Wednesday, I received an email from Rebecca's school. Basically, Rebecca's art project was accepted for the front cover of the school curriculum guide. It was a pretty amazing thing and Rebecca had no idea her picture was being considered. Needless to say, she is very happy and we are very happy for her.

Here's the letter:

Rebecca :

I am writing with a message of congratulations. Each year as we enter the process of updating our curriculum guide for the following school year, the Art Department submits numerous pieces of art from all of the different classes for review, only one of which is selected for the cover.

I am happy to inform you that the digital image you created of AES (attached for your parents to see, too!) has been selected for the cover of the SY11-12 Curriculum Guide. I realize that you will be graduating in May, but next year's guide will be handed out to all continuing students during the registration process in February of 2011. So you'll still have a chance to see it all around the high school anyway.

The team that agreed on your piece of work found your color combination dynamic yet soothing. We also agreed that the AES theme was perfectly suited to the cover of the curriculum guide.

Congratulations, also, on a successful completion to your first semester here at AES. Inbound seniors often experience a more difficult transition than younger students, and yet it seems that you have managed this transition well. Have a wonderful holiday.

Best regards,

Ms. Miller-Manchester

Beth Miller-Manchester

High School Assistant Principal

American Embassy School - New Delhi

And here's the picture:

The Happy Artist:

Another Biking Video

So I'm realizing that I am not posting to the blog as often as I should. I'm blaming Becca for always working on homework and not letting me have time on the family computer. At least that is my story and I'm sticking to it.

One of the things that I love about living here in Delhi is the sun all winter long. Although we are well into 'winter' here, the weather is chilly at night (say in the 40's) and pretty warm in the daytime (60's or 70's) with sunshine every day. No grey skies, no rain, no drizzle, no snow. So although the days are short, the sun comes out and it really is beautiful weather.

Mornings are often foggy/smoky/smoggy/whatever and the sunrise is more like a round orange ball behind a curtain. Still, it is fun.

One of the things the great weather lets me do is go for bike rides every Saturday morning with the biking crew. We tend to go for a longer ride, leaving sometime between 6 and 7, depending on where we are going, and getting home between 11 and 1, also depending on where we are going. Sometimes we just head out from the house and into the 'bush'. Sometimes we drive in the cars to another area where we can head along the river, or out into another wilderness area. Sometimes we just head down and ride the streets of Delhi and Old Delhi. It is always fun and always an adventure.

I've put together a short slide show of some of the pictures I've taken while out riding in the bush. Hope you enjoy it. Watch by clicking here.