The explosions woke me up. I looked at the clock. 11:58 Christmas Eve. I grabbed my phone which also serves as my flashlight and headed out to the living room to overlooks the excitement on the street below. The world was very much alive outside our sleepy household.

Fireworks were  exploding all over the city’s horizon- it seemed like they were far away, and yet that acid smell was wafting in our open windows. People were strolling up and down the street, motorcycles tore past “FELIZ NAVIDAD” they shouted back and forth to each other. And my heart echoed “Merry Christmas” “and Peace on Earth” I added as another round of fireworks hit the sky. 

I’m not really sure how long the fireworks continued.  Father says 4 am- fortunately after watching for awhile- I returned to slumber land.

Christmas Day dawned bright and clear. I love the morning here in Nicaragua. I’ve discovered I need to make coffee very rapidly before it’s too warm to enjoy.

Father and Kerry continued their tradition of going down to the street and attempting their limited Spanish “Felix Navagod” says Father cheerfully “Olaf” (which is a form of “hola” or hello) and all the natives laugh and probably despair over this fresh wave of gringos…

We got in on the staff Christmas party. It was wonderful to finally meet these people we feel like we know already. 

Our overloaded freezer slaved away to freeze these snowman ice cube. We waited til everybody was seated to put out the ice cubes. They disappeared rapidly. I was amazed out how fast the peppermint patties went from frozen to mush… But then again-it was 100 degrees…

I loved the afternoon activities. Most everybody joined into the snow man building contest. (Except those who couldn’t resist the urge to nap in the hammock) Each team had a roll of TP and a bit of orange and black construction paper. A lot of them turned a team member into “Frosty” but some used less parishables material. Creativity is a wonderful thing.

(Looks to me like the two junior snowmen were in danger of melting here 😬)

And the gingerbread village. Again-it was fun just to see the various expressions of artisticness. The challenger here was to keep the children from eating the building supplies 🙂 too cute…

Our time at Richards came to a close after a few rounds of Rook. I couldn’t help but attempt to capture the children’s beginning the “tearing down”phase of our  gingerbread village 😍 and who could  resist the barefooted ninas in the hammock?

As the full moon rise over the city of Leon, we celebrated Christmas Evening by dining on the best taco.EVER and enjoying the festivities in Central Park. The shops were busy there. I was amazed at how much activity there was. Clearly the culture was celebrating, but lots of people worked holiday shift this year…  The churches have a nativity scene competition in Central and they were really neat. If I understand correctly- the mangers remain empty until Christmas Eve when Baby Jesus arrives. 

And so we praise Him -that He has arrived and offers Peace on Earth. To each of us.

Feliz Navidad,

Kendra

Bonus:

I.love.market. You see so many incredible things….

And praise report:

Most of the menu for Christmas lunch came with us from the States. We heard various reports of experiences bringing food through Customs-but everyone assured us that Nicaragua wouldn’t be a problem… So we prayed and prayed as we sorted out our luggage at the terminal. and discovered that out of  all our luggage the only check in bag  that had non parishables was hanging out in Miami. Wow! We couldn’t believe it when it arrived Christmas Eve with the lid wrenched and all the cans dented- but still intact. Even the jar of apple butter survived the beating (because we’d gone to the extra bother of wrapping it in bubble wrap and sliding it into an empty tin can) PTL!!