it's beginning to look a lot like christmas (sort-of)

nothing here so far has felt like christmas. we have no decorations or tree up at my house. there are only two houses in long beach that have christmas lights up. i rarely hear christmas carols. the kids are excited and counting down, but ... it doesn't feel like christmas is so soon.

two things, though, are worth mentioning.

before jeremy and ben left, they mentioned that i had to go over to robert and ning's to see their christmas tree. so i brought carly over there one afternoon to check it out ... and it's really quite amazing.







that's bamboo that she's cut into those branches and then painted green! isn't it awesome?

and then last saturday, mycel invited carly and i to go christmas carolling with her youth group from church. they are going each weekend in a different barangay to raise money in order to give meals to poor families on christmas day. which is just ... a wonderful cause. so of course we agreed to go with them here in long beach.

we walked up the length of the main area (about a km or so), stopping at most of the houses and singing. there were a few songs in english (jingle bell rock, joy to the world, hark! the herald angels sing (some i didn't know: give love on christmas day, whispering hope)) and a few in tagalog as well (they were pretty!). it just felt like such a good thing to do and was so much fun! i think we even raised a fair amount of money. we sang for three hours, so my voice was hurting by the end, but it was completely worth it. it just ... felt so christmas-y. and such a good thing to participate in.







merry christmas and happy holidays!

[i will be travelling until 10 january, but will do my best to post pictures and stories about the rest of the philippines during that time]