Christmas Presents, a few days early!

December 20, 2009
In a home of 17 kids (give or take a few on any given day!), having will power to hold out with gifts until Christmas is hard. Very hard! And then you add three scheduled days of strikes with nothing to do, and all will power goes out the window! So, last night we did presents :). Quite the experience!

I made the kids a Bible scavenger hunt to find their presents, sending them up, down, inside, outside, from here to there in search for their treasures! We did it after dark, adding another element of fun to the game! Many of the presents were group gifts, games and toys from amazing people in the US, but they all had small gifts from me as well, journals I had made in the US for the girls, balls for the boys, and badminton sets for the boys and girls, and a few other trinkets here and there!

I gave all the kids bags to collect their treasures in as we went, and then we all gathered in the kids dining hall to open them all together! Newspaper (my makeshift wrapping paper) flew everywhere, with balls bouncing and kids shouting with glee! There were the shouts of “what’s this,” “how do you play with that” and “WOW!” It was a lot of fun! And allowing them to open them a day early allows them to play with them during these days of strikes! Which is nice since during the week we have little to no time to play! So, the next few days should be filled with fun and laughter, rather than pencils and math! Not that pencils and math aren’t fun- I think they’re great- but the kids don’t always share my sentiment!