Merry Christmas

This year was an especially cozy Christmas. Most people flew out of Turkey on Christmas Eve to go home or travel in Europe, but a few of us stuck around to create a Christmas in Turkey. My friends, Jane Crawford and Stacy and her son, Gabe, spent Christmas Eve and Christmas together. We didn't have much to work with: The mall was not full of holiday shoppers, ornaments, or Christmas decorations, and the baking aisles didn't have the necessary Christmas ingredients, so it was a bit of a challenge, but rewarding as we built our Christmas out of nothing, and each adapted our holiday traditions from home.
It snowed on Christmas Eve which greatly helped our situation.

That night, we borrowed a projector from school, hung up a sheet, and started the three day marathon of watching Christmas movies. We also baked our cookies for Santa and wrote our letters to him. Gabe is eight, and still believes in Santa, which added the magic.


On Christmas day, Gabe made out well with lots of Spiderman loot.



We spent the day making a gingerbread house, except not out of gingerbread. No molasses in Turkey. And cooking a big feast for Christmas Dinner. We had a nice collection of randoms for Christmas Dinner, which is my favorite for some reason.



It has been nice to hole up inside the last few days, and now I am off to France for a week in the Maritime Alps...snowshoeing and skiing. It is snowing here right now, so I am in the Winter Wonderland Spirit. Happy New Years!