Pre-Christmas Festivities

Less than a week now till Christmas, and everyone has it on their minds. Mostly it's just thinking about the snow, and how to get home by bus or train or whatever's working. Last weekend though, the festivities carried on...

First, we got our tree to put up in Paul's living room. Luckily, Ikea sells them at a great price all ready to go. The one we got was from Denmark.

After some intense manly chainsaw action to make the trunk of the tree fit the stand, we got it looking spritely and ready to decorate.

Decorations were pretty much the same as in the states. Twinkle lights, both white and colored, garland, regular globe ornaments, and ones made by the kids ten years ago in school. Paul's resembled a space age type rock, with nails in a purple styrofoam ball. The major difference that I enjoyed was putting lots of little chocolates on the tree to eat as you pass by and admire it. 

At church on Sunday, we had the "Christmas show" put on by the kids and the youth group. The teens did a little skit about an alien who comes to earth looking for a story about what changed people's lives. He hears about Christmas, and then finds out about Jesus. It was in French, so that's the gist that I got out of it. Paul played the martian here with a homemade mask, and even spoke martian!

The little ones sang some songs and then did a typical nativity story.

She's missing her crown, but she's supposed to be a wise man coming to see the new king. Without the crown, she just looks like it's asian day or something. After the service there was a big lunch with yummy food where everyone chatted for a while.

That's about it for now. We had a party here in Nogent with songs and skits as well, but no pictures. Some of the guys dressed up as penguins which was pretty entertaining.