The Post I Would Have Posted

S in the days leading up to Christmas

Our India Christmas was delightful.
Turns out that in the Phil and Kathryn Blackburn house Christmas is about food, specifically baking. Seeing as the only thing we'd baked before Christmas Eve's eve in our thermometer-less wonder of an oven (see previous post for a photo of the little darling) was a small pan of brownies, and we'd been shocked in the process (Yeah, no joke, the oven will on occasion send out a little shock), we went down right crazy and started buying all the fixings for a real Christmas dinner. That meant Phil taking his computer on the road Christmas Eve and traveling 50km outside of Delhi to buy a turkey from a Frenchman that runs a farm here (in our typical fashion we were a little late on the turkey decision, and Phil's phone call missed the turkey delivery wagon by 3 hours). We had some set backs. We'd planned to start the thing at 1:30, at 1:15 the electricity went out. They were installing a light post in the park across the street. Apparently the whole world doesn't stop on Christmas. It was better to have an explanation than not. An hour and a half later the electricity came back on. And we were in business.

Turkey, potatoes & gravy, rolls (a little dense, turns out even though it's not the color I'm accustomed to, it IS whole wheat), fresh green salad. Home made apple pie, and some cookies to deliver to friends. Way to go Sunflame Exotica DX!


Our $20 paper tree, not as bad as I'd expected

This year's big item

While we missed everyone, and especially missed being there for Phil's sister Bonnie's homecoming, we enjoyed our little Christmas. It was nice to have the whole thing toned down a bit. Christmas is a national holiday here, but not actually observed by many. There were cheap decorations available to buy in all the markets, but you had to seek them out. The nicer stores catering to westerners had Christmas decorations, but it was all a lot more laid back. It was nice to be able to choose exactly which holiday traditions we wanted to participate in, and focus on our religious worship. Maybe it was partly because I had enough else going on, but Christmas caused much less stress for me than it has in the last couple of years. Merry Christmas.