Christmas

Christmas felt a bit different this year. Different place. Different traditions.

But it was still a special time.

During our traditional Saturday Morning breakfast of Cinnamon Banana pancakes we opened the presents we had. Jair got an amazingly cool (but not genuine) All Black rugby teeshirt. He was stoked. He knew about it, in fact, he wrapped it himself (in baby wrapping paper!) because I was too busy with Theresa. Then I got a dvd courtesy of a Waku store. Gotta love 'em. Bianca was here too and guess what? She brought pressies with her as well. Classic car magazine (Theresa, I mean, Jair was stoked) and Brooke Fraser's latest cd and we're all stoked with that.

I think Bianca was pretty wrapped with her Pijin Baebol tee-shirt as well.

So we were all happy on that accord.

We decided to splash out and buy cream cheese so I made white chocolate macadamia nut cheesecake. Mmmm. That went down well at morning tea with an iced coffee.

Then lunch - usual Solomon Island extravagence (I mean that). Sticky chicken, the most beautiful mango you've ever tasted, rice, two different mince stews. And then Kwark (I wanted the locals to taste some of our Kastom Kai) and Apple crumble. Anyone at the base came and joined us (bringing food...) for our dinner. It was great.

Then to finish the day off, Ben and Rina,

who are staying here helping out while Kevin and Machi are on holiday, came over, we had more cheese cake, hot chocolates and then sang Christmas carols. It was absolutely lovely.

"Oh little town...

missing the buzz

So we seem to be in the swing of things now. Theresa is growing well - today when I measured her she was two centimeters longer than last time (which was not that long ago...). Although we're feeling the cumulative effect of sleep deprivation, we're doing ok. Jair is busy as ever with work on the base. The generator needed a... well, you know what they do with engines, that's what it needed. So that's taken up some of his time this week.

We are very blessed to have Bianca over at the moment. Her friendship and cheerfulness enrich our lives. She's come here on holiday, but she's gone straight to work, cooking dinners, mowing lawns, cleaning roof cavities. Her amazing willingness to help has given me time to catch my breath. In the week that she's been here, I've only cooked dinner three times. I feel very lucky to have a "live in house girl" - well, that's what the locals think she is! It's very cultural to take a young woman into your house when you have a baby to be your house girl, to cook and clean, and so that's what everyone thinks Bianca is for us!

But the buzz I'm missing is the Christmas buzz.... I know, I know, Christmas is over-commercialised in the West and while you're probably getting sick of cheesey Christmas songs in every store you go to, the long lines, endless pulling out the card to buy presents and the two story high Christmas tree that will undoubtedly stand in Westfield shopping malls, I'm a little bit sad to be missing out on all the Christmas cheer. No tree. No presents. No tinsel. No lights.

So I made a wreath for our front door and added a few simple touches of Christmas cheer to our house. I couldn't help it. Just goes to show that your cultural background dies hard!