Christmas on the Horizon

With it being sunny and a constant 80 degrees, it is hard for us to fathom it is Christmas season.  With Hinduism being the major religion in the area we live, Christmas doesn’t appear to be a major holiday.  Besides a random collection of small shops in an alley Mike and I ran into, we have yet to see any Christmas decorations.  We decided early on we had to put in effort to make our apartment feel like Christmas to lighten the weight of missing it back home.  Luckily for us, my mom had sent some fun paper and ribbon to help us out.  I started by decorating our door with snowflakes and ribbon:

One of our friends who works for Sahara, Tanya, was going to be gone for Christmas so she gave us all her Christmas decorations. The random collection included sparkly snowflakes (which we hung on the living room ceiling), a small, fake Christmas tree (which is now has candy canes from Annie piled high on it!), some snowmen, and Santa Clauses.  It also included the classic elf hat that is fashioned in some of these pictures.  It has a rigidity that I’ve never seen before in a hat. 

The next feat was creating stockings.  My mom made us beautiful stockings for a shower gift last year, but we didn’t want to ruin them by carting them off here.  So we had to be creative.  We found a needle and thread in our apartment and bought 10 Rs (~20 cents) handkerchiefs.  I ended up buying a smaller one because I liked the design better but somehow Mike’s creation turned out a great deal smaller than mine.  I guess I’m expecting more stocking stuffers than him!  (mine is the bigger, plaid one)

  

There you have it: our attempts to decorate Christmas style.  We are starting to brainstorm the actual Christmas celebration, but honestly I will have my own personal Christmas on December 30, when my favorite sister in the whole world comes to visit.  We have a paperchain counting down the days, and it is a highlight to take down the chains everyday.  Today: 17 days away.  That’ll be a day to celebrate for sure.