'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

Our Christmas was better than expected out here in Georgia. On Christmas Eve, we both had work as usual, then we came home and opened two of the wrapped gifts from the U.S., one of which contained two terribly awful movies Nathan & Corrie wrote they couldn't resist sending us ("The Lady and the Highwayman," an early Hugh Grant film, anyone?) and the second contained a pound of whole bean Starbucks coffee from Brenden's grandmother. After only instant for the past 6 months, the smell of the coffee was intoxicating, and Brenden was determined to make coffee (Brenden already shared the rest of this story with you all). We got to hear from Silas (our nephew) as he made noises all the way from California (I know everyone thinks their nephews and nieces are the cutest in the world, but it's really true with ours ;). We spent a lovely time talking with Brenden's family, and then our friend Rachel called us and that was also great to catch up with Rachel. After the phone calls, we brought out peppermint bark (sent from the U.S.) and a bottle of champagne (bought here) to share with host family, and we had a lovely time making small conversation, watching MTV, and baking brownies. Then my parents called, and we had a wonderful conversation with them also, which was a lovely way to complete the night.

Brenden and I had arranged to take the day off on Christmas, even though his office was open and my school had classes, so we were able to sleep in and open our presents in the comfort of our bed, in our pajamas. Our stockings were hung over our beds, and as we agreed to buy only one small gift (and stocking stuffers) for each other here and save our money for gifts in Istanbul, our Christmas presents to each other were in our stockings. We opened our stockings first, and Brenden had showered me with lots of small chocolate candies, and I got a beautiful, warm, and very soft scarf. I intended to give Brenden a pair of sweatpants (inexplicably, Brenden packed only one pair of pajama pants, although he has several different pairs of shorts for the summer), but what I thought were men's sweatpants turned out to be a Georgian version of long underwear (they were a lot tighter than sweatpants should be, and as they were one-size-fits-all, I don't think they just were intended for a smaller man). In my defense, they are made out of sweatpant
material, not think cotton or silk. However, Brenden says they are quite warm and he will get much use out of them. ;)

Then we ate a late breakfast and lounged about until I had to go off to school. Last week, before we had decided to take the day off, the teachers' class I teach and I decided to have a small Christmas gathering (along with my main counterpart, Maia) on Christmas Day, so I went off to (what I thought) would be a desserts-only-supra with three other women. It turned out that someone had decided to invite lots of people, so I ended up at a supra with 12 other women, including my school director and deputy director (the deputy director is sort of the 2nd-in-command, and she handles the school schedule, but she is also a regular teacher, albeit with a reduced teaching load). Anyway, it wasn't just coffee and desserts but also khatchapuri, many different desserts, and wine. I begged off on consuming more than one glass of wine, but when I ate only a little of everything, one of the women actually just forked another piece of khatchapuri on my plate. Only in Georgia would this happen to a grown woman. Anyway, we all toasted, and I made a slightly convuluted toast for a merry Christmas, and for peace for all people (I used the wrong word for "people," which confused them--there are two words, one for countable numbers and one for uncountable, and I used the countable one).

After that, we came home and ate again, then retired to our room and watched "A Christmas Story," then made garlic bread and Starbucks coffee. It was a lovely Christmas!