We had Christmas Eve at our house and invited some wonderful friends to join us in our celebration! In our family we have the tradition of reading, acting out, and singing the nativity. I had Jase organize the papers for me so that everyone could have their own copy of the songs to sing.
It was a pretty hectic day trying to get everything all ready for people to come over that night but it worked out just perfect. Uncle Pallov came by to give a hand chopping and preparing while Todd had to run some errands for a while. Courtney had a bracelet that she made for him out of pipe cleaner that he just had to ware while he was cutting up some food.
And the night began with an awesome smorgasbord! Everyone brought stuff to share and enjoy. There was so much food it was awesome. Although I have a hard time eating when there is so much going on.
We absolutely loved the friends that were able to come! We had Pallov, Steve & Megan Beckett, Dustin & Lyndsey Tollman, Eric & Anike Vos’, and a friend of the Becketts – Tr. Julia.
The nativity was so fun! The kids had a great time acting their parts and you should have seen the costumes Zay and Niz Vos put together! - Priceless!! – We read scripture and sang songs. Not everyone knew all of the songs because of different backgrounds, but the neat thing was everyone knew Silent Night. As we all sang you could just feel how special that night had been when our Savior was born. It was wonderful.
White Elephant. I think this is somewhat of a southern Alberta thing because all the Canadian Families that came to our Christmas Eve do it as part of their tradition and so does Todd family. We had a great time watching the kids trading gifts, and laughing!
After the White Elephant game was time for more eating, visiting, playing and just enjoying each others company.
Unfortunately I missed Lyndsey in this picture because I didn’t even think about taking it until after they had gone to put their sweet little boys to bed.
On to the self timer family portrait and our Christmas Eve with Pajamas and Books. We were so lucky that our friends store – Bebe – got these in and on her shelf that very day! There weren’t any PJ’s for Jase on the island so he go a large shirt and wore his shorts. There really is no children’s clothes available to buy anywhere on the island any time of the year. Just some odds and ends every once and a while brought to the island. Someone could do real good to set up a nice kids clothing shop with some sort of deal with Wal-Mart or Target. Books to purchase in the island was a little tricky also but I managed to find some for ale at the library. I’m not sure Jase was to please with his book though. He has been desperately waiting for the last and final book Inheritance of the Eragon Series.
Christmas Morning is always sooooo exciting. The best part of the whole thing is watching the kids run in with huge smiles on their faces looking at all the stuff Santa brought. He always bring to much!
Picture Just before they see what Santa has brought!
Uncle Pallov came to join us for some of our Christmas morning! The kids were excited to see him.
Here is Jase opening up the gift they made for him. It is a dog out of a drink box box and their artistic enhancements.
These pictures of Jase are probably some of my favorite of the whole holiday. He got so many fun toys, games and things but this was his most prized gift of all…
The DVD Todd is holding is a documentary of the beginnings of flight in the Caribbean. Our Landlady’s late husband was one of the pioneers of Caribbean Flight and is in the documentary as well. It is a nice keepsake for us to remember Statia.
We really wanted to go to Zeelandia Beach and get some pictures of the family. We brought some things to try and put the camera on to put it on timer, but with our luck the Tollmans were there and so Lyndsey took some pictures for us!
Then Todd and I took some pictures of the kids.
We have some very sweet friends on the island. I’ve mentioned Rachel (Ju) before, Teem ) her boyfriend, and Sen (Teems Uncle), came by on Boxing day to visit and bring some nice gifts for us and the kids. Rachel, Teem, and Sen are all from China and are some of the most kind and thoughtful people we’ve met. They work so hard in their stores – hours upon hours – so we don’t really have very many opportunities to see them outside of their work. So we are always very honored when they want to come by because they rarely get the opportunity to do anything else but work, sleep and do laundry.
Christmas treats from Uncle Ishmael.
We had a wonderful second Christmas here on the beautiful island of Sint Eustatius. The kids didn’t seem to miss the snow as much this year. Surrounded by our Statia family made it just as wonderful a Christmas as if we were at home!
