Feliz Año!

(1) The week before Christmas, my host family trooped through my door carrying three very large boxes. "We see your apartment is sad," they said, "so we are bringing you some espíritu navideño--some Christmas spirit."

Then, this happened:

And this:

Technically it is a stool dressed up as a Christmas tree, but I think the many sparkly things on it give it the final transformative touch, wouldn't you agree?

And let's not forget the nativity:

The jurassic nativity.

If you were ever in doubt as to how many velociraptors were present at the birth of Christ, now you know: at least one left her gingerbread house to witness the event.

(2) My favorite Christmas present this year was A VISIT FROM MY SISTER.

Man, I'm spoiled.

(3) While she was here, we had a cookie decorating party (to carry on the tradition started with Molly Mag-Mar last year!).

Brought to you by the illustrious firm of Nom, Nom & Nom.

(4) We took a trip into the hiemal (look it up; it's my new favorite word) heights of the Andes to spend Christmas with PCVs George and Heather.

While there, we made glue, which is a very delicate process requiring an innate sense of stirring technique and an intimate knowledge of the Periodic Table of the Elements. Argon, Hydrogen...um... As such, I stood back and took pictures.

Heather's moment of glory.

We didn't make all this glue just for fun, though fun it was; we made it in order to paste giant portraits of indigenous locals on the revamped community center.

(5) We also did a Christmas activity with the kids at the after school program in the Casita de Chocolate in Guayaquil...but I'm saving that for a separate post.

(6) Here's a gratuitous picture of Sunny with a llama:

(7) Happy New Year!!!