Party at B603!

Last night we had a Christmas party for all of our neighbors. We had a great time and I think all of our guest did too. The coolest thing is that this was the first time that most of them had ever celebrated Christmas. Alicia and I shared with them, that since we weren't at home with our families for Christmas, we wanted to celebrate with them, because they are our family in India. Overall, we had about 40 people! It was great. It was honor to introduce Christmas to our friends. We celebrated in American and Indian style. The evening began with everyone receiving a santa hat when they entered as part of a game. The game didn't work out that great, but everyone loved wearing the hats. They also made great pictures! Alicia found the idea for the santa hat game on the Internet and I loved it so much I went out and bought 50 hats. lol. Just a warning for the future: From now on, any Christmas party I host, will require everyone wearing santa hats. :)




Our friends helped us with the program. We celebrated how we normally would. We had song sheets and sang the familiar Christmas carols and some Hindi songs. We then had the Christmas story, but instead of just telling it or reading it, our guests had active parts in it and acted it out. It was great! It was amazing to watch all of our Indian friends as they acted out the greatest story ever told. I think it was also the first time for many people to hear the story. They really got into it, and we discovered that some of them aren't very bad actors.



Our friends did a great job of bringing out the meaning of Christmas throughout the evening. To end the night, our friends shared about Jesus being the light of the world and how the love of Jesus is shared from one person to the next. We then passed out candles and they were lit person to person as we sang in the dark. Then everyone took their candles and put them out on our balcony so that people would see the light coming from our apartment.



Like any Indian function, the evening ended with a full Indian meal. Luckily, we have an amazing helper, Anita. We could not have done it without her! She worked all day long. She helped us clean, get dressed, and cooked all the food. She is such a blessing to us! She is also an amazing cook. Everyone raved about how delicious her food was.





Everyone left happy and full. They all seemed to really enjoy themselves, and expressed their gratitude over and over again. We just felt so honored that they would share our special time with us. Hopefully, they heard things last night that they will never forget. As they left, we gave them a small ornament to remind them of the evening and the story they heard.

After everyone left, (which was really late) Alicia and I opened the gifts we had received. When you visit people here on special occasion, it is customary to bring a gift. We had a lot of people at the party so we ended up with alot of gifts. The gifts we often recieve can be quite interesting. We received a very wide range. It was great though. Alicia and I had a blast!




After we opened everything, Alicia and I couldn't help but to just stop and give thanks. We have been so blessed by being here. The holidays can be a difficult time to be away from home, but we have been so blessed with amazing times with people here. As much as I would love to be home for Christmas, I can't imagine not being here. There are days when I don't really know why I'm here. But then again, there are times like last night, when I celebrated Christmas with 40 people who had never celebrated in the past. That is when I know that right now, there is no where else I'm supposed to be.