Little Old Man

Probably not many of you were
hoping for an old man in your
Christmas stocking this year...
but I was.

Imagine my delight to find
3
of these charming figures
under my tree this year!
These hand-carved figures are created by carvers
in the Polish Tatra mountains and
sold in the marketplaces.
The Jewish figures are particularly
popular and thus, my Christmas request this year.
Dean magically surprised me with these musicians.
I have
NO
idea how he was able to get them home
and hide them without me knowing.
Pretty tricky, wonderful GUY!

Old World Christmas

Sit back and enjoy the sights of a
magical evening strolling the streets of
Old Town Warsaw
at Christmas time.

Early Christmas

Yesterday, President and Sister Engbjerg
invited our missionary zone to the mission home for a
"Danish Christmas".



The table was set exquisitely
and we enjoyed pork roast, brown potatoes,
purple cabbage,
mashed potatoes, gravy and
of course Danish
rice pudding with cherry sauce.The tree even had real candles on it!

We sang carols,

listened to the soothing tones of
"Away in A Manger",

laughed, giggled, munched, presented and observed some clever skits,
and even Santa was there!

It was a warm and wonderful day with people
we have grown to love and cherish like our family.
If we can't be with you this year.....
there's no better place to be.

WISHES

Admit it!
You have made a wish on the
turkey wishbone.


Ever wonder where this tradition came from?
Probably not til this moment---but now that you have,
I'm going to share my research with you.
The Etruscans
(they lived in Italy 800 years BC) thought that
chickens had some powers of divination. When the hen died
they saved the clavicle, dried it and would
rub on it and make wishes.
The Romans brought the tradition when they
conquered England, and the
English colonists brought the tradition to America.
The term "get a lucky break"
originally applied to the person
winning the
"wishbone tug of war".

I even did some research on how to always win this
"tug of war".
The theory is that
you don't tug on the wishbone.
Just hold it firmly and
this will cause the OTHER person to do the tugging.
If they tug,
it will cause the wishbone to break at its
weakest point and you will
always win.
So, I decided to try out this theory...

As you can see, there were no winners
at our house this year,
but no one came away disappointed either.

December 1st!

You never know what people
keep under their couches...


for us it was the perfect place to store our Christmas tree and ornaments.
So since today was the first day of December,
I figured that I had waited long enough
and we decorated the tree.
It only took 30 minutes.
It's tiny, but big enough to bring the season into our little apartment.
We're the first in the neighborhood to put up any decorations,
but I kind of like being a trend setter.
I'm sure the others were just waiting for someone to start.
Our nativity set is miniature too, but the
center
of our thoughts this Christmas season!