Bilingual Angel

Just as with Thanksgiving, I never thought I that would decorate MY first Christmas tree in Poland. Just as with Thanksgiving, I always thought this is something I would do with my husband (yes, I am still unwed). Instead, I have done these things with my dear roommate, Sarah, and let me tell you we are rock stars at getting ready for Christmas!

We started last weekend with some basic baking. We had another missionary, Natalie, over to help. Basic sugar cookies and chocolate chip meringues were the main event. Even though we made a REALLY big mess, we were quite successful!

The goal for this week was getting all of the decorations up with the main challenge being the Christmas tree. Someone had left behind one, so thankfully we had a tree to hang up! We put it up on Thursday, but then realized we didn't have any lights, so we postponed any further decorating until we had lights. One run to TESCO later, we were back in the game. After the lights came chains of snowflakes that we had cut out of paper. It looks really classy! We had a start to put on the top, but we both come from angel so a star would not do. Sarah found a pattern to make an angel out of a paper plate. Working together we constructed her (I drew, she cut).

Our angel looked great on top of the tree, but we decided she was missing something. Sarah suggested that she needed a little sign saying "Merry Christmas!" I quickly agreed and then added, "But we should probably make a little sign in each of the fourteen languages that we find on the back of our packaged food." Sarah quickly agreed and we got back to work. Now our angel has 14 different signs that we're going to change daily. She started out Polish, yesterday was Hungarian, today is Slovak. Yet to come are Estonian, Latvian, Russian, Hawaiian, British and American English, and so many more. We have the most culturally aware angel ever, and I couldn't be more proud.

I also was finally able to mail Christmas packages to my family and boyfriend yesterday! What a relief! Filling out the customs form in Polish was very stressful, and I had to find where I could buy brown wrapping paper to wrap them in. Thankfully it wasn't too expensive; I just hope that they make it across the ocean in time!

This week will be very busy with Christmas parties in every class, but it will fun to be able to relax with the students because last week was all grading. Only 7 more days of school until I'm Italy bound!!!

Peace,
Colleen