Merry Christmas!

I would have to say that this past Christmas was the most unusual one for my family thus far. On Christmas Eve we went out to eat after the morning service. So Nisha being in town and all, we decided to go to Taco Rico which has the have the best Mexican food...even better than Mexico itself! I was pretty excited to order horchata, tacos al pastor with fresh cilantro and onions! I spent the rest of the afternoon making pies and sweet potatoe cassarole while listening to Christmas music. We went to the candlelight service at 8pm where there was a lot of good music played by the brass ensemble, Hannah and i on the flute, the handbells, and Titus singing/guitar.
Christmas day we slept in until 10am (in past years Nish, Tirz, and i would get up early and surprise my parents by making breakfast). This year my dad made a delectable brunch of blueberry pancakes, sausage, hot chocolate, and orange julius'. We then opened our presents after convincing my parents not to take any pics cuz we were still in our pjs! haha! I got a lot of great gifts as usual but i'd have to say my favorite gift was my lime green ipod nano! it's pretty spiffy! i also got a Nestor Torres cd, Pride and Prejudice dvd (the 6 hour version w/Colin Firth), a music dictionary, the Les Mis vocal/piano/guitar book and other random things.
so the rest of the day was spent cooking, cleaning, and getting ready for our guests. Two families from our church came over, the Rubios (from Guadalajara) and a Puerto Rican single mother and her two daughters. We had so much fun celebrating the birth of our Savior together! First we ate dinner, which was rather interesting since the conversation kept switching back and forth between spanish and english! After dinner we sang christmas carols in spanish next to our navity set which is Colombian and huge (as in it takes up a fourth of our living room!) We then started dancing. The little three year old, Anna, was giving the rest of us ballet lessons....it was so cute/hilarious. Then another girl wanted to show me the song she could play on the piano and then asked me if i could teach her how to play chopsticks. once she got the hang of it, she wanted her mom to come watch her play. Her mom happened to be a really good pianist and asked me if there were any piano accompaniment parts she could play with my flute. So i got out the Bach piece i'm working on for my recital and we played together for a while. it was so much fun! After everyone left, we cleaned up and watched It's a Wonderful Life.
So that pretty much concludes my Christmas! I love this time of year b/c it reminds me of the best gift anyone could ever receive: eternal life! It's so easy to to want more in this life, but God has already equipped us with everything we need to live a victorious life! I don't know about you guys, but i'm looking forward to getting to know my Redeemer better in the new year!