The fire is flickering in the living room and two little boys in Santa hats shake with jingle bells every time they turn their heads.  We are holding cups of coffee, The First Noel is playing, and rain is falling outside so hard that our guava tree is bent in half.

Excited little voices are flitting from one be-ribboned box to the next.  Someone snaps legos together – a garbage truck with real garbage! – while someone else is tapping out Christmas carols on a new African drum.

A real drum, not one made in China; Santa made sure of that!  The wood is unpainted and the cotton strings are well worn, with the dust and probably the sweat of real village life.  Used, but the sound rings out and resonates with the shape of the air the way only a true artist would have known or cared to make it do.

On the other side of the room, jingle bell chocolates arre being loaded and unloaded into the DHL truck.  It came with its own forklift!  Pretty cool.

Later we have huevos rancheros and Danish Kringle and set up a new Christmas puzzle on the dining room table.  There are still wrapped presents under the tree because the boys are happy enough playing with the toys they’ve already opened.  New boots too!

It rains all morning and then the sun comes out, so we all jump in the pool.  How wonderful is that!  Then nice warm baths with cocoa and candy canes, we Skype with our families back home in DC and Connecticut, and soon it’s time for Happy Hour and more opening of presents in the living room.  M&M pajamas!  Star Wars Cantina!  Art Supplies!  Razor Scooters!  Mommy is mentally calculating the weight of all this new stuff… what will we have to get rid of to stay under our limit of 7200 pounds?

Last night we had friends over for what has become a new tradition of Christmas Eve dinner, which means today we have  nothing to do.  Leftovers?  Or Chinese Food?  When else would we ever waste a Christmas Dinner on Chinese food?  Christmas in Zambia with hot weather and no family around sounds like a pretty good time to try out Dong Fang!

XOXO to our families and our friends.  We miss you so much!!!