Merry (Ethiopian) Christmas!

January 7th is the day they celebrate Christmas in Ethiopia. There is much dancing and feasting, but little emphasis on gift-giving. We didn't really dance or feast. Unfortunately, though I had envisioned otherwise, we didn't really celebrate at all. The kids were disappointed that they weren't going to get even more gifts. Nice try, guys. But, I will use this opportunity to tell you about some of the gifts that we have been enjoying from our Christmas celebration.

It was the year of the Snuggie...
Or Sith Lord Robe as the case may be...
Don't ask me how they fell for these glorified airplane blankets with the most cheesy commercials ever, but they did...
I even want a zebra one now. Is it too late for me to change my mind about doing gifts for the Ethiopian Christmas?

Each child had much to be thankful for. A grateful Tate thanks Grandma for Lego Rock Band...
Emmie shows off the hat and scarf Grandma made for her...
And though Jack (correctly) thought he scored big time with his gift from Gunga...
I think he had even greater affection for the ginormous marshmellows he found in his stocking...

Lulu got some fun gifts like Sophie the giraffe...
And a sock monkey Jack in the box that I thought she would love. She did love it, but only when it was closed...
When the cute little sock monkey popped out, she was terrified.

But her favorite thing of all was a plastic cup...

I loved the magazine beads I got from 147 million orphans. I wear them all the time! I also love the shirt Bill got me. It is sooo comfie and so true...
Yeah, so if you want people to read what your shirt says on your blog, you can't take a picture of yourself in the mirror I guess. Or at least I can't. But you can check it out here.

Proving that giving really can be more fun than giving, the best presents this Christmas were ones that we gave. Like this sign we gave Gunga...
And the calendar we made for Grandma...
And the DVD my sister spent endless hours putting together for my mom with pictures we had all gathered of our family through the years. She didn't tell my mom what it was at first. She said it was a movie she found that she thought my mom would love. The picture below is when my mom first realized what the movie was as she saw a picture of my Dad...
If you ever want to know a beautiful love story, they had it.

So, Merry Christmas again (Melkam Ganna) from our family to yours!