It's hard to believe this is our THIRD Christmas in Albania since moving here in 2013. One of our favorite traditions is a Christmas party at the Hope Center.
And one of the traditional elements is a photo booth!
I'll just share a few pics of our family in front of the tree...
We love it when Eda can join us for our visits!
You can always count on Nathan for a good photobomb
We had games, but my camera was smokin' from so many photo booth pictures, so I just got a few. Here is Nathan explaining the rules of a "Yankee Swap" Christmas gift game (the gifts were all from us -- but this was how we thought we would distribute them, thus no cries of 'unfairness'). Interestingly, no one stole from anyone until it got back to the very first person. I think they were all enamored with opening gift wrap and the allure of the 'unknown'!
Our kids insist on being included in everything now, and of course, had to be included in the game that involved presents.
Thanks to Pat Smith (I'll blog about our visitors in a later post), we had lots of sugar cookies to decorate! Most like our American icing, but for others, it's just too sweet!
Also, I learned that this is no Albanian word for icing.
Sometimes Reni gets overwhelmed by all the love and attention he gets from the youth, but we've been trying to help him understand that they maybe miss their younger siblings or wish they had younger siblings and so all Reni has to do to show love is to be with them, and Mom and Dad will always be within eyesight if it gets too much! I was proud of this moment where he received help with icing his cookie.
And finally, dancing to Jingle Bell Rock with what Ellie calls, "The Robot Santa."
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