Christmas in Amman

 

We have been pleasantly surprised with the Christmas spirit seen throughout Amman!   We knew we were moving to a (mostly) Muslim country, and so we weren't expecting a whole lot of holiday cheer. Which is why we have been so impressed and thrilled with all we've seen!  We are told there is much more this year than years previous, which leads me to believe that someone knew the Nelsons were coming  ;-)










Here are a few Christmas season highlights-

-Holiday decorations in most of the stores we frequently visit- Christmas trees, lights, Santa figurines, etc. More and more as each week passes! We even saw some lights when we were walking home one night. 
-We've attended many holiday bazaars, which are like craft fairs back home.  Some were rather small and disappointing, but some were fantastic!  Our favorite was hosted by the Orthodox Club and was amazing.  We walked into a decorated gym filled with Christmas spirit from the various items for sale, to the real-live snow globe (which the girls adored), to the nativity scene and Christmas music filling the gym.

- We visited Santa at one of the bazaars and he was well... different, lol. I mean it was a great effort and we truly appreciated it, but he was wearing Nikes, his beard was falling off and his hair covered his eyes, he was skinny.. and instead of elves, he had Hello Kitty by his side! He loved the girls though, and since there weren't many kids, they got to spend much longer with him than previous year's Santa visits.  A great memory that we will surely laugh about for years to come!


-We weren't expecting it, but the girls had another Santa visit!!  We walked into Taj Mall, and to our amazement we found an AMAZING Santa display!  I have never seen such an elaborate Santa display, so we were quite thrilled.  It was by far the best we've seen (but the best Santa award still goes to Santa at The North Pole theme park in Colorado Springs).  The stairs in the picture are part of the display, and the elf was wearing a costume like the elves in The Christmas Story :)  That day we also got to color Christmas cards in the middle of the mall.

- At work we are doing Secret Santa!! Yay!!  I've done Secret Santa every year as a teacher, so I am thrilled I get to continue the tradition. We also have a beautiful Christmas tree.  I love the little things. Little things that make a big difference, and make me smile :)


We've really enjoyed the Christmas season, and the best is yet to come! Only 4 days left of work, and we are off to Italy for 10 days to celebrate Christmas, New Year's, and our 10 year anniversary!  The Christmas season is always great, but instead of shopping endlessly to find all the perfect gifts, this year we are giving each other the gift of travel, and more importantly the gift of time.  The girls are only getting gifts from Santa this year, and a few from family members.  Their gift from mommy and daddy is our trip and time together as a family and turns out, they don't mind one bit.  When we told Hailee, she was getting a trip to Italy with her family, instead of gifts, her response was, "Can we see the leaning tower of Pisa?" 

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends!  We love and miss you all!!