Our Christmas in New England

Despite of being away from family, we enjoyed our first Christmas in New England. As the holidays were approaching, we kept getting boxes from our family with lots of gifts in them. It was also fun waiting for the mail to see if we had gotten any Christmas cards. As the days went by, Cameron kept asking if we could open gifts before Christmas (this started about a week before Christmas). Finally we came to an agreement that we could each open a small gift on Christmas Eve but we would wait to open the rest the next morning.

On Christmas Eve we went to our church and we heard a great message on not only the importance of the virgin birth of Christ but also the importance of His death and resurrection. After the sermon, we all gathered for a Christmas party with lots of finger food and home-made eggnog.

On Christmas Day, Cameron wanted to open the presents at 6 AM! Unfortunately, I was half asleep and ignored his request. Later that morning before opening the presents, we read about Christ’s birth in Luke and Matthew – great reminder of salvation thru Christ as being the best gift of all! We are so grateful for all of the gifts that we received from our family; even Atenas got something from her Aunt Jan!

That day, we were invited to have breakfast at our neighbors’ house. We had a “light” breakfast because we were going to cook all day for our Christmas lunch/dinner. We cooked Mexican food: Tamales and Chiles en Nogada. I never thought I would be making tamales in New England (I had to call my mom way in advance to get a list of all the ingredients and the “how to” instructions – there is no recipe with exact measurements for my grandma’s tamales). Everything came out so good and we all had a great time!

Here are some pictures:

Getting our tree (proceeds went to charity):

Finding the perfect tree:

Our decorations:

We couldn’t find our tree stand, so Cameron built one. We might have lost it during our move a year ago. He did a great job, so far the tree has not moved an inch!