Christmas in pictures

I'm glad for a busy Christmas, since it kept me from being too homesick!

Christmas dinner with Stacy, which we managed to make by ourselves. :)

Making vánočka (Christmas sweet bread with almonds and raisins) with Maminka

Sarah and Adam (my cousin and her boyfriend) stopped in Prague for a day!

2 days over Christmas with Czech friends in a small town two and a half hours from Prague.  They even hung stockings for us to celebrate American style!

Jesus' birthday party :)

And a trip to Halle, Germany, to visit EMM friends there. 

Czech-American Thanksgiving

This may be a bit late, considering we're on to Christmas (I'll try to update on Christmas before a month goes by :) ), but I was blessed to experience multiple Thanksgiving gatherings.  The first, with Czechs, who don't even have this holiday!  But my host mother works at the American Embassy, and because she gets the holiday off, she has a party!  It consisted of turkey, multiple varieties of boiled potatoes, and lots of people who rotated to and from the table.

  This is the group that started around the table, and as others dropped in, we moved to the small living room and they took our places at the table.  Probably 30 some people were in this small flat before the evening was over.

19 kilo turkey (40 lbs!) "carved", or rather chopped into pieces, by my host father, Ondrej

I made pumpkin pie, which the Czechs had never had (they tend to make soup out of pumpkin), but they liked it! 

Second Thanksgiving happened a few days later at the flat of some American friends.  This was much more American-style, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn pudding, and pumpkin pie.  4 Americans and 3 Czechs shared this lovely meal, as well as the things we were thankful for.  For this one I got to carve the turkey (a first-time experience) and I was wishing I had taken a little more notice at home when my brother Jesse did it. :)

the spirit of Christmas

Thanksgiving is over and all thoughts turn toward Christmas... and I find that I'm not especially excited about the season.  Huh. That's festive. But upon reflection, I feel very removed from the normal "Christmas" activities: Advent celebrations, Christmas carols, decorating, making cookies, spending time with family, getting excited about finding the right gifts ...  I'm not really part of a family here.  Church (and Advent celebrations there) are in Czech, which I don't understand.  Most (if not all) the Americans I might spend time with over the holiday will be out of the country.  Granted, I am looking forward to experiencing Czech traditions with families: Mikuláš Day (today, actually, when Mikuláš (St. Nicholas), along with an angel and the devil, visits children in their homes to ask if they've been good or bad and treats them with sweets or coal/potatoes), traditional Czech Christmas on the 24th with carp.  And potatoes.  Those will be rich times with people I am growing to appreciate more and more.  And yet they are stand-alone moments, and between them... well, it's hard for me to put my heart into the true spirit of Christmas as I miss building expectation with people I love at home. 

So I have to be intentional.  Go search the woods for greens to decorate my flat.   Find an Advent devotional.  Make an Advent wreath.  Visit the Christmas markets.  Find ways to bless and celebrate with others through the season.  Here's to the spiritual preparation and anticipation of receiving a Savior.