Chiang Mai Christmas

We prepared ourselves for a difficult Christmas away from home and family.  We had never spent Christmas away from home.  Every year we had the same traditions that we loved doing.  

We thank God that He provided new friends, gifts, delicious food, a home, and family to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

We had never hosted Christmas Eve when we were at home.  This year we had our friends over for dinner and a gift exchange.  During dinner some of our other friends came by caroling as they made their way through the neighborhood.  

Christmas morning included the tradition of opening gifts in our stockings.  

We spent the morning and afternoon at home enjoying food and family.  When we lived in Colorado, Nate's mom had the tradition of making a baby Jesus birthday cake.  We continued that tradition for breakfast.  Steph is an incredible cook but she had never cooked a turkey before.  We splurged and bought the cheapest turkey in Chiang Mai ($40) and Steph cooked it to perfection.  She made a wonderful Christmas dinner!!

Christmas morning is Christmas Eve evening in the states.  Our family had sent us gifts and we had sent them gifts.  Through Skype we were able to watch each other open presents.

Skyping Nate's family

Steph's sister lives in Australia so we were skyping 
from 3 different continents

Christmas evening we went to our neighbors house where many of our friends gathered.  We had a wonderful Christmas, much better than we had expected.