This week began with a few fun activities for everyone, except my brother who was home sick for the day. My mom and I took Sara Gail to see the new Frozen II movie! I won’t give away any spoilers for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, but it was amazing! We all had a great time, though I’m not sure that Sara Gail is quite ready for regular movie-going outings: she was talking and asking me questions almost the whole time. Although, she did a good job for her first time seeing a movie in a movie theater. It was a lot of fun to hear her laugh so heartily at Olaf’s antics!
While we were watching the movie, Varun and Abigail were traveling down state to do a little bit of shopping, and to pick up my other brother, Jonathan, and his girlfriend Veronica. With their arrival, everyone was finally home for the holidays! We all had a very long day, though, so it was just time to relax when we all got home.
The next day was Christmas eve! Which meant that Santa’s little elves had to finish wrapping all the presents, and the grownups had to work on some cooking preparations to be ready for the big day. Luckily, there were plenty of adults around to help keep the girls entertained while the grownups were busy doing the final chores for the holiday. They were so happy to see Uncle Jonny and Veronica, and the four of them had so much fun together!
Then, before we all knew it, it was Christmas morning! For some reason, as she’s done every year, Sara Gail has been really shy in front of everyone once she comes out to wish everyone Merry Christmas and start opening up her gifts. Abigail just dove right in! Eventually, after stockings and a little bit of festive pumpkin bread and cranberry bread for breakfast, we all made our way under the tree. We tried our best not to go too overboard with gifts, but the tree always seems to be dwarfed by all the gifts surrounding it. All the gifts pictured are for the girls, though. We grownups do a Secret Santa book exchange every year, and we’ve had a lot of fun doing so! It certainly removes a lot of the stress on what to buy for whom. The girls were both very pleased with all the gifts they got, and Mommy and Daddy were certainly going to find packing all the gifts to take back with us quite challenging!
We spent the rest of the day watching a new Christmas movie on Netflix, opening our Secret Santa books, and enjoying a nice dinner of ham and rice around the table. It was a wonderful family Christmas all together, and it was great to savor that moment of togetherness, knowing how far we all are during our regular routine. It was certainly a Christmas I’ll remember, and I will cherish the memories for the months to come, between the time I will see my family again.
The next day, I wanted to spend as much time by myself as I could, just relaxing and watching TV shows that I can’t get over in Ghana. I know I was probably a total sloth that day, but I knew, almost as soon as we would arrive back in Ghana, Varun might have to start traveling again, and it’d be just me taking care of the girls. So, I just wanted to bask in the alone time, for me, myself and I.
Sara Gail was busy with her Uncle Jonny and Veronica, they went on a walk down the road together and then, when they got back, they decorated gingerbread houses together. This is a Christmas tradition of theirs that they were excited to share with the girls. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good pictures of the decorating, but just know that a fun time was had by all!
On Saturday, Veronica and Jonathan had to head out for their own plans for New Year’s down in Pittsburgh. They were flying out of Boston that evening, so Varun, the girls, my mom and my other brother, Jeremy, and I decided to go down to see them off. Varun and I were also expecting to meet up with friends of ours from Houston who were up in the area for Christmas with their family. It was a fairly pleasant trip down to Boston with each of the girls sleeping intermittently on the drive down.
We got there before everyone else and decided to grab some lunch and then take the girls to the Boston Children’s Museum. I had gone, myself, when I was a young girl, but it had changed a lot since I had been there all those many years ago. The girls had a great time exploring, but I think their favorite exhibit was the dinosaur exhibit, by far! Abigail was so excited she couldn’t decide if she was happy to see the dinosaur or scared!
After a few hours at the museum we went and checked into our hotel and went downtown to spend some time with our family and friends. It was sad to say goodbye to Jonathan and Veronica, especially not knowing when exactly we’ll see them next. But we did have some quality time catching up with our Houston friends.
We eventually made it back to our hotel for a lovely room service dinner, on the floor outside our hotel room. Having both the girls sleep in the same room in a new place was a bit challenging, but they did eventually both fall asleep. Then we spent a few more hours catching up with our friends before we went to bed for the night too.
And that was how we spent our Christmas week this year. We will probably spend Christmas differently each year that we are living here in Ghana, but this was a perfect first one in the books! I hope you all come back next week to read about our last few days in the states and our tricky trip back home to Ghana.
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