Christmas

On Christmas day it was 70 degrees. That is a good place to start.

Holidays have been interesting for the last couple of years. We have lost all of the family traditions that we once had in Ohio. We are now searching for new ones. Every house along the street where we are renting sets up luminaries along the sidewalk. It is the only street in El Centro to do this, and evidently it is a long-standing tradition.

The luminaries burned Friday night and Christmas Eave. On Friday night we went across the street to a block party. This, evidently is also a long-standing tradition. We have met several people on the street and have been invited to quite a few parties. Now that I think about it, there are a lot of parties on our street.

On Saturday we had a large Christams dinner with roast turkey and baked sweet potatoes. Then Saturday night we walked down the street, through the luminaries, to Willie's Donuts and bought a dozen choclate covered donuts. Everyone thought this would be a good new tradition.

On Christmas Day we celebrated with our new tradition, Monte Christo sandwiches and opened a conservative amoutn of presents. Martin got "toe shoes" for hiking (pictured), Davis got a new knife for hiking (pictured), Lucas got a ping pong table.

One of the benefits of not having furniture is that we now have plenty of room for a ping pong table. Most of our actual Christmas day was spent setting up a ping pong table and playing ping pong.

We received an invitation to eat Christmas Dinner at Pastor Ron's house. Around 3:30 we walked a couple houses down the street and had a wonderful evening of food, stories, and song. After-dinner conversation focused on a theological discussion of the portrayal of Mary Magdelyn in art and popular literature. After that, we played guitar and sang carols. It was quite the party. We walked home around 10:0o.

We are going to spend next week in Ocotillo hiking and working.