Christmas 2010!

It's been a long time since I've felt that same feeling of wonder, excitement, and anticipation that I used to feel as a kid during Christmas. I really do miss that feeling. The last three Christmases have been hard for me since I've spent them so far away from home and family. I definitely think there's Christmas magic at my parent's house since my Mom goes all out with the decorating. But I think we actually captured some of that old feeling of Christmas this year, especially since we have Zara now. It was so much fun to watch Zara open her presents and I can't wait until she gets older and understands more about Christmas and Santa Claus and presents. But David and I also really tried hard to find ways to help others this Christmas season and I really do think that that made a huge difference. It's amazing how serving and helping others can really help create that feeling of Christmas love and spirit.

Thankfully, David had both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off from work. (He had to work both days last year which made for a very unhappy Liz.) Zara and I both had colds (though thankfully not bad ones) but we're both on the mend now.

I was in a bit of a funk on Christmas Eve. I don't know why. I think it was a combination of being sick, away from family (again), and missing home. We went out to deliver the rest of the Christmas cookie plates I had made (more on those later) in the afternoon and checked the mail, hoping that the rest of our Christmas presents had arrived (they hadn't, even though we had ordered them in plenty of time). It was absolutely frigid outside so David left Zara and I warm in our home while he went to pick up our pizza. In grand Hayman tradition, we had pizza for Christmas Eve dinner. Last year we payed an exorbitant fee for Papa John's pizza but this year, we decided to go with a cheap Korean option, Pizza School. Their pizzas are between 5,000 - 8,000 won apiece and they've got.....rather interesting pizzas. And since they are so cheap, we decided to try a bunch.

We bought four pizzas. We got a regular pepperoni pizza and a sweet potato pizza. That one was interesting, especially since they put chunks of sweet potato on it drizzle it with a honey mustard sauce. I didn't like it at first, but it kind of grew on me over time.

We also got a bulgogi pizza which was pretty good (though I would have liked more bulgogi)....

...and the "carbone" pizza. Another strange concotion. This one has an alfredo sauce with spaghetti and ham. So strange and yet strangely good.

After dinner, we watched It's a Wonderful Life which I had never seen before. Crazy, right? Then David read A Night Before Christmas (both of which I bought him this year) and then we went to bed, expecting to wake up early the next morning.

Zara is unsure of what's going on. This face totally makes me laugh.

Christmas morning found Zara bright and happy.

We woke up around 8am on Christmas morning and took showers and got ready to talk to David's family via Skype at 9am. David's family opens all their gifts on Christmas Eve (blasphemy!) and so we watched them open their gifts and we opened the gifts that they had sent us.



Here's Zara opening up her first gift from David's parents. I was surprised that she was actually able to open gifts but she definitely liked the wrapping paper more than the gift inside.

After talking to David's family, we opened up the rest of our gifts. Zara got this stuffed monkey, a doll, a set of blocks, and several sets of books (Dr. Suess and "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" series) and clothes. I bought David clothes and a few games and movies and David bought me a new blender, a beautiful blue Kitchenaid 5-speed. It's glorious. We also received several movies and games.
I then made scones for breakfast, which we always ate on Christmas morning growing up. (Ignore the few burned ones. I've never actually made scones myself before and I got the oil too hot.) After breakfast I talked to my sister and my niece and nephews on Skype.

Zara then preceded to take a 3 hour nap (a rarity) while David and I played games the rest of the day. We played Uno, Skip-bo, Trivial Pursuit, and Minotaurus, a Lego game which David got from his sister. It was actually a really fun game. We ate pizza for lunch, and had pot roast for dinner and played games the rest of the time. It was a great, relaxing day and David and I greatly enjoyed ourselves. I am really looking forward to next year, when we'll be back in America and Zara will be old enough to play with her toys and be excited to open her presents. I really do love Christmastime.

I hope everyone else had a very merry Christmas!