Sleigh bells ring, are ya listening...In the lane snow is glistening.

Well in Honduras it isn't. Its more like in the lane, everyone is glistening (from sweat).

**(I know Christmas has past, but I was looking through my pictures and came across these and realized I didn't post about my first Christmas in Honduras. So here it is, a couple of months late)**

I am a four season type of girl. And no not the music group, but actual four seasons. You know, Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. (all you have to do is call, and I will be there, yeah yeah yeah - oh sorry. It seems that I am having music tourettes syndrome today).

Anyways... I grew up in a state that has four distinct seasons, and without realizing it, I used the passing of seasons as my own calendar. Back to school was at the end of the summer, and I knew that when the early mornings and evenings were sweater weather, but by 10 AM you were sweating rivers, well it was time for back to school. Cool crisp days and the smell of apple cider in the air (or when it felt like it should smell like apple cider), well that means that it is almost Halloween. (also known as that day where you wear an expensive costume and then cover it up with your winter coat because it is freaking cold outside, and you wasted all that money so that the kids can knock on doors showing off different colored tights and maybe next year you can get away with just having them wear normal clothes, a winter coat and colored tight and pretend they are wearing a fabulous and expensive costume but always seem to forget and maybe everyone should just stay home and eat hand out the candy instead)

Once Halloween is over, the days get shorter and cooler, the sky becomes more grey. And that can only mean that it is time for the Christmas decorations to go up at the malls and Main Street etc.

For me the Christmas holiday makes its presence known by the crazed red nosed shoppers at the Mall (OK we all know I don't shop at the mall - lets be honest. The crazed Walmart shoppers), and tons of people trying to find the best parking spot. Black Friday was always a fun time for me too. All of this to me means that Christmas is on its way. And my favorite tradition of all, wrapping presents on Christmas Eve, while talking to my friend Carrie as she wrapped her kids presents. (and the conversations almost always was more - I lost my scissors, I lost the tape. How can I lose the freaking scissors/tape when I just had it right here. OH here they are. Rarely did we actually talk)

However, in Honduras, there was none of that. To be honest, Thanksgiving (which we didn't celebrate this past year, but will this year) snuck up on me, as did Christmas. But it is hard to think of Christmas - for me anyways - when I am wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. They don't have a Black Friday, and it wasn't until the week of Christmas that I realized that there was Christmas decorations up at the stores of Tocoa.

For my kids, Christmas time meant decorations around the house. A tree, and things hung from the ceiling (that was the only place I could put decorations without the little ones breaking them) and Christmas cards hung on the wall. But my tree and decorations were still in the US, and there is no mail system in Honduras, which basically means no Christmas cards to hang on the wall. They kept asking if the tree was coming because that meant that it was almost Christmas.

All of these things added together, and there was a decidedly non Christmas feel in my house. And I wasn't prepared for the lack of Christmas feel. (although this year I know what I am up against, I know more about what I want to do to remedy that)

And while I am not a big Christmas shopper - where I give the kids tons of presents - I still like for them to have some things to open. But thanks to money being extra tight, I hadn't been able to go shopping for them either. I thank God though for my mom. She sent me a box of things that I had left, plus she threw in Christmas presents for each of them, and she also sent me her Nana box. The Nana box is a box she kept for when the grand kids came over, they could pick something out of the box to play with or eat. (She would fill it with McDonald's - and other fast food - kids meal toys, and lollipops, pens, etc). But since it is usually just my kids that are at my moms house, (my other brothers live to far away) the box was just sitting in the kitchen not being used. So she sent it to me. There wasn't a ton of stuff in there - especially after I separated it into a pile for each of the younger 5 - but it was enough for the kids and they had a great time opening the gifts, and playing with them.

One of the things that Lana, Mick and Isa got were McDonald's Barbies, and while I don't have a picture of it, that was Levi's favorite thing. He would hold one in each hand, and kiss one, then kiss the other, and he would do that for at least a half an hour at a time. The boy loves women - be it real life women, or plastic ones, LOL.

You can see how happy the kids were while opening their presents.