Sheng Dan Jia Kuaile! (or Merry Christmas!)

Honestly, I have no idea how this happens. I could have sworn I just posted last week, but alas, it's happened again. Two weeks has past with no blogging. Whaddya do.

We had a fantastic and exhausting Christmas, but I guess that tends to be part of it, doesn't it? I realized that living here entails Mom isn't around to adorably wrap gobs of presents, decorate the house to perfection, or make a scrumptious Christmas breakfast magically appear. To all of you women who do this year after year, I applaud you. I'm looking into hiring a live-in elf for next year.

We had a great time hosting a large Christmas party the weekend before Christmas, and I think our head count topped out around 36. It was wild, crazy, and simply precious in every way . . . thank goodness we had a group of college students visiting to help! I can only imagine cleaning up the popcorn-garland/snowflake cutting/cookie decorating stations without them - Lord have mercy!!

Here's a pic of our sweet little Christmas tree, just ignore the strand in the middle that went out!

 

My favorite Santa helping make Christmas cookies for friends (thanks for the new pj's mom!)

With some dear friends opening presents after Christmas breakfast:

With our co-workers Tim, Molly and peanut (not pictured, he/she still has about 5 more months until he/she is ready for his/her closeup!) after dinner on Christmas night.

Do you think the Bentley's have the photo head tilt down or what? SHEESH!

All in all it was a great Christmas. We were able to Skype with our families, and participate via interweb in Christmas merriment. We of course missed them and being with our friends, but I feel like this quote best captures my feelings:

"When you have everything, you can see Christ in everything. When you have nothing, you realize Christ is everything."

Without question, we could hardly count ourselves in the "having nothing" category; quite the opposite really. But in the absence of some dearly loved faces and places, we were able to more deeply celebrate He who is everything more sweetly than ever before.