Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hi there everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to celebrating the New Year. I just wanted to give a little update on things here. This year for Christmas I stayed in Indonesia. It was my first Christmas "away from home," far from family and our usual Clauson traditions. It was hard to be so far away but was also full of blessings. Molly, one of my roommates, also stayed here for Christmas and we enjoyed time with some of the families in the community. Here are some highlights:

Christmas Eve morning we were invited over for traditional Finnish porridge with the Anturri family. Paivi Anturri is our school's music teacher. Her and her husband and three kids moved here to Indonesia from Finland 3 years ago. It was fun to try something new and spend time with this family.

Christmas Eve night Molly and I went out to dinner and ran into "Indonesian Santa."
There was a moment when I thought he might give us candy canes, but instead he pulled some fruity candy out of his bag. After dinner we went to the international church's Christmas Eve service.

Christmas day started with breakfast at Matt and Rachel Theissen's house. Matt teaches the upper level math classes and spanish and Rachel teaches english and drama at our school. I was especially excited because I bought real bacon at the store for us to enjoy at our special Christmas breakfast. Yum! I love bacon. :)

Next Molly and I went to the Crowther's house for a British Christmas. One of Molly's student's family is originally from Great Britain and has three kids at our school. We enjoyed spending Christmas with this fun family, especially because the kids were so excited about christmas and presents and all those wonderful things.

In this picture David (in 4th grade) uses one of his gifts to build the biggest tower possible.

Siena (in preschool) shows off her favorite Christmas gift- snorkeling gear.

Callum (in 3rd grade) shares his gift with me- 3D glasses that came with a movie he got.

Sitting down for Christmas dinner- very delicious. We had pumpkin soup, roast beef, potatoes, mashed yams and carrots, and gravy. After dinner we enjoyed some yummy "puddings" as they call dessert in England. Suzanne (the mom) made a treacle tart, chocolate mouse, and fruit salad.

A little after dinner reading- Siena shares with us her love of horses.

We spent almost 7 hours at the Crowther's house and I enjoyed every minute. I love British people, especially their accents. After we got back home we ended our very long Christmas day by having a couple of friends over to watch "A Christmas Story." I was exhausted at the end of it all, but felt blessed to be surrounded by friends while I was far away from family.