It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

We may not have snow, sledding, or Jack Frost nipping at your nose but people here in Bangalore are getting in the Holiday spirit.  Christmas trees, shiny ornaments and twinkly lights are popping up everywhere.  Local stores are piping in the Holiday tunes (some are recognisable - Others NOT AT ALL!)  My new favourite that absolutely cracks me up every time I hear it at the store goes, "Bonga, Bonga, Bonga, Let's do the Christmas Conga!"  Hahaha!  Does anyone else know this song?  I'd never heard it before moving to India.  I wonder what would happen if I ran up behind one of the patrons in the store and latched onto their hips and started to do the conga?!  I'm not sure if people would share in my enthusiasm but I would love to be doing the Christmas Conga through the produce aisle! 

Bonga Bonga Baby!!!

Last week I attended a Christmas cookie exchange.  How fun to literally be trying cookie recipes from all over the world.  I scored some Hershey Kisses (shocking to find them here in B'dore) so I bit the bullet and paid about $5.00 for a small bag of Kisses (caramel filled, no less) and made Peanut Butter Blossoms!  Shucks.  Those things are so stinking good.  I literally had to have Salomi HIDE them so I didn't eat all 3 dozen of them before the big exchange. 

Yummy Sweet Treats!

Some of us that attended the cookie swap!

The kids have been helping me get the house all decorated as we are going to be travelling for a good portion of the month of December and I didn't want to feel like we didn't get to fully enjoy the Christmas season!

Buddy is Back!

The kids were so tickled that Buddy found his way to India.  His only hiccup was that he got stuck between the window and the window screen and couldn't figure out how to actually get into the house!  SILLY BUDDY!!  Once we rescued Buddy from the window we've found him all over the house!  He's always keeping watch over the kids and reporting back to Santa.

 

Tree Trimmers!

This is the first year since Matt and I have been married (13 years!) that we don't have a real tree.  I gotta say....I'm not missing the pine needle mess at all.  I missed the experience of going out and looking for "The Tree" and I miss the fresh smell but the neatness of it all and not having to worry about whether the tree needs more water etc is REALLY nice!  I got this tree from another member of the Overseas Women's Club (OWC) that wasn't going to be in India over Christmas anymore so she happily sold me hers.  YAY! 

Rachel "The Peaceful" Elf ;0)

Although we brought along a lot of our seasonal decorations - A few things either got left behind or maybe I threw them out at the end of last year and just didn't remember?!  Of course at the time I had NOOOO idea I was going to be moving to India and didn't realize how hard it would be to find certain things here.  Certainly, anything I might have been contemplating throwing away I would/should have saved b/c things here are sketchy at best!  One of the things that I never found was my tree skirt?!  Weird.  So I had to be resourceful and I was pretty proud of myself when I figured out that my sari would make a lovely, sparkly wrap around the trunk of my tree.  That got me in the Indian theme of things and I found some strings of elephants that I turned into garland.  All in all, our tree is shining bright, we've had our traditional cup of wassail for the season and we're all feeling mighty festive around here!

Oh Tannenbaum!  Oh Tannenbaum! 

How Lovely Are Thy Branches!

I nearly had a heart attack when after multiple trips up and down the ladder and very particular placement of MULTIPLE strands of lights, we had a power outage (happens ALL THE TIME) and when everything else came back on - My tree remained BLACK!  My heart was heavy.  How was I going to find lights in India to cover a 10 ft tree?!  The lights you find here do not string together like they do at home.  I would have been lucky to have more than 2-3 strings of lights on the entire tree.  It was a Christmas Miracle b/c the following morning, Matt gave the tree a little shake and a wiggle and although not all of the lights came back on - A good majority did and my heart soared.  I learned from that mistake and now have taken special precautions to prevent a "blackout" on my tree again.  I've got it plugged into a surge protector and a step-down converter.  HOPEFULLY - We'll continue shimmering for the remainder of the season.

Sari-Skirt

Look at those pretty little pachyderms

 hanging on my faux-pine!

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens or maybe your favourite thing is the warm woolen mittens!?  WELL!  One of MY favourite things during this festive season is gingerbread houses.  Love the smell.  Love the creativity they encourage.  Shall we even start with the candy!?!?  I mean it's a Candy Casa for Heaven's Sake!  Does it get any better than that?!  I LOVE IT!  So, you can only imagine the happiness in my heart when we spotted a gingerbread house here recently.   YAY!  And no, not the little ones you bake in your oven.  We are talking a HUGE life size gingerbread joint!!!  The kids were able to walk inside it and it was housing (no pun intended) all sorts of sweets that were available for purchase.  Well!  What do you know!  When we got closer to check it all out - This sucker was actually made of REAL gingerbread!!  HOW NUTS?!  I mean, will it actually survive until Christmas!?  It might?   I mean, when you make a gingerbread house and place it on your kitchen table where everybody nibbles at it and snatches off it's candy cane corners - I mean, if you didn't EAT it...I wonder how long it would survive?!  When we came across this gigantic gingerbread domicile - I resisted my urges and did NOT lick the walls or remove any of the candy creations (David might have...but I didn't!!)  Haha!!

Genuine Gingerbread!

Seriously.  Is that crazy or what?!  Look at the shingles!  Those are individual "pancake" shaped pieces of gingerbread.  I'm in awe - Haha!!  Just goes to show ya - You absolutely NEVER know what you will see in India!

xo   Merry Christmas Everybody!!! xo