HOLIDAYS - Thanksgiving and Pre Christmas

There are two things that we would classify as "hard" when you go on a mission.  The first thing is leaving your family behind.  But we know they will be blessed so it makes it a little easier.  The second thing is Holidays.  Of course that probably falls back to the family category because that is who we usually spend the holidays with.  So today, I thought we would share some of our holiday pics with you.

THANKSGIVING:   

We spent Wednesday with the missionaries at the Zone Leaders home.  Everyone brought a part of the meal.

We were quite surprised to find the table (That would be a table-tennis table!) was all set.  Potatoes were mashed, gravy was made (so what if it came from a package) and rolls were being removed from the bag.  

The Sisters were cooking the turkey and a pumpkin pie.  Should be arriving shortly.

 So some of the Elders entertained

themselves while we waited.

And waited...  and waited.  Of course it gave everyone a chance to hang upside down on the inversion table.  A new experience for most of them.

Finally the main course arrived and everyone ate, and ate and ate...

Until nothing was left but a little of the Carbine Red Jell-o Salad...
Which, I might add was loved by everyone and was polished off before nightfall!  And the recipe?  Well it was given out to several adventurous cooks.

 Nothin' left to do now but kick back and... BURP!  

Oops!  Excuse me!

********

On Thursday, all of the missionaries had been invited to eat dinner with investigators and church members.  Well, I refused to fix a big dinner for just the two of us.  So, we went out to dinner.  Most restaurants were providing a Thanksgiving Dinner.  It was yummy!  And there was no fixin' to do, no dishes to wash and no cleaning up afterwards!  But...  There was no left over turkey either and no left over dressing and NO LEFT OVER PUMPKIN PIE!  Hmmm.  Might have to re-think this next year!

PRE-CHRISTMAS

With Thanksgiving over, we went to the storage shed and found an old (and I mean old!) fake Christmas tree.  Took it to the apartment and - this has never happened before - we put the tree up.  THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING!  At home in Uintah, this didn't occure until at least December 1 at the earliest.

 

This tree is so old, the wires were all rusty and the color coded tags were all missing.  But hey!  It was free.  There were 3 strands of colored lights in the box and a lighted star for the top as well as some tinsel garland and a little Nativity set.  Then a quick trip to Walmart for $10. worth of Christmas balls and........

Wa La!

We have a Christmas Tree.

Add some sented candles and some music and "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

To add to the Christmas spirit, we have the Interfaith Nativity Display sponsored by the Lubbock Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Held in our stake center.  We wrote about it in our Family and Friends letter but we wanted to share some of the pictures we took of the Nativities - hundreds of them - couldn't include them all but here are a few:

There were homemade nativities & purchased nativities.  

There were ceramic nativities and nativities made from wood, paper & clay. 

Simple 3 piece nativities and nativities with multiple pieces

There was even a "live" nativity...

There were so many.  The whole thing was simply awesome!  Until next week...  Happy Shopping!