Merry, Merry, Merry...

...Christmas in July August!

Admittedly, we love celebrations ‘round here.

It was Sara who suggested Christmas in July. 

Having grown up in the northern hemisphere, I associate Christmas with cold season 

(which is not December in this part of the world!), and I thought Sara's idea was splendid.

I’ve spent two Christmases at Nahumba, but Sara hadn’t been here for one (and won’t be here this coming Christmas either). We decided to have Christmas together here at Nahumba.

July flew by… the first half I spent working double time with work and trip prep, and the second half I spent with Lusaka errands, regional retreat, and holiday… getting back home just in time to dive in to month-end responsibilities.

We opted to postpone Christmas In July until August.

I’ve never seen the house look so festive! 

One bonus for having off-season Christmas is the opportunity to borrow your friend’s unused Christmas decorations ;). Yep, we borrowed a mini fake tree, tiny lights, and some bitty ornaments!

We listened to Christmas music as we draped lights and arranged the nativity on the mantel one evening. 

Then we sat by the fire and drank hot cocoa.

Sara made a lovely gingerbread dough, and I mixed a double batch of sugar cookie dough

As part of our Christmas celebration, we invited a handful of neighborhood kids for an afternoon cookie decorating party. Boy was it a party! Food coloring, sugar, and cookies—what’s not to love?!

According to our rough calculations, we baked over ten dozen cookies. The kids had a blast icing and decorating, as well as rolling and eating(!) cookies. And, though neither Sara nor I are ready to sign on as daycare assistants or kindergarten teachers, we had a lot of fun too.

she had a BLAST

and he... took home his plate of cookies...
and ate.the.entire.pile! (yikes!)

most important question of the day:
when can i eat some cookies???

WIP
(I knew I could relate a cookie decorating party to accounting somehow...)

this gal is a kitchen pro-- you should see her use a rolling pin!

imagine!
we even had an elf at this party!

After all the short people left with their cookie bags, I sat down and squeezed the remaining icing onto the few leftover cookies, sprinkling them with colored sugar and dotting them with chocolate chips and cinnamon red hots. What fun.

hurrah for Christmas in August!

(Oh- and just in case you’re concerned about our cookie consumption around here, be assured we gifted the cookies away. Two days later, there was not even a trace of our kitchen ever having 

produced so many little sweet treats.)