The top picture was our Christmas card picture and the others are of the Christmas market on Hlavna.

At the top are the three little hams I made for Christmas. They ended up being way too much meat for 7 people, but that's what they get for having a non pig-eater make the ham! Haha....

Next is the girls on our team with their Christmas tree on Christmas morning. Amber (in the back) brought back matching pj's for herself, Steph (left) and Lindsey (right) when she went to the US for a wedding in early December.

The bottom picture is Mikey and I right after we opened our presents at our apartment. We are wearing the crowns from our Christmas poppers. My family always has them at Christmas at my Aunt Beth and Uncle Rich's house, so they sent them over for us to have. Inside they have a crown and some little toy plus some cheesy jokes. I got a whistle and Mikey got a hair scrunchie...I guess he is going to have grow his hair out if he wants to use it.....

Christmas Time in SK! by Cindy

Christmas wasn't quite the same here in Slovakia, but we had a really fun time experiencing the Holiday season in another country and culture. In early December a Christmas market was set up on Hlvana (the main shopping/walking street in town). It was made up of little wooden "cabins" where people were selling lots of homemade crafts and foods. We had fun exploring the market and finding neat things for ourselves and others! At Tesco (European Wal-Mart type store) we bought a small Christmas tree and a few decorations for it. It was nice to have something to decorate our little apartment with! We also receieved several cute little Christmas decorations from people in the States, so our apartment was festive enough to make us happy!

When Christmas finally came, we had lots of fun and WAY too much food! So...pretty similar to the US! Slovaks have three days of Christmas. They consider the 24th Christmas Day and then the next two days are Christmas as well. They spend Christmas Day celebrating and opening presents at home and going to church. Then on the 25th and 26th they travel to celebrate with extended family. We still celebrated Christmas on the 25th, but we celebrated a little on the 24th as well. One of the girls from our Bible Study, Zsu Zsu, had to stay in Kosice with her dad for the Holidays. Her dad is going through chemotherapy right now and he spends every third week here in Kosice getting his treatment. Unfortunately, his last treatment fell over the holidays and he had to be in the hospital during Christmas. Zsu Zsu studies here in Kosice, so she stayed in her dorm and her mom and brother celebrated Christmas at home. So, on the 24th, she came over for dinner and church with us. We had a traditional Slovak Christmas soup made with mushrooms, sauerkraut, and kilbasa. We also had potato soup for the less adventurous! Then we went to church at the Lutheran Church that we have been attending here. It was fun to celebrate Christ's coming together!

On Christmas Day Mikey and I opened presents here in our apartment early. We had presents for each other and some that had been mailed from friends and family back home. Then our whole team went to the girls' apartment for breakfast and opening the presents we got for each other. We had biscuits and gravy and monkey bread and then started opening presents. We had exchanged names for a secret santa and it was fun to see what everyone got for each other. Then we just kind of lounged around until time to make Christmas dinner. Everyone made a dish or two. I made three little hams (we couldn't find any normal size ones!). Which was weird since I don't eat any pork, but everyone else wanted ham so I made them! They don't have fully cooked hams here like they do in America, so I had to cook them first on the 24th and then glaze them and finish them off on the 25th. Everyone said they were tasty, so I guess they were. It was weird to cook something that I wouldn't taste...haha!

On Christmas night we talked to our families on our Vonage phone and Skype. Mikey's family left the camera on for us to watch people opening presents. His extended family was almost all there, so we got to say hello to lots of people! It was almost like being there. My family was together too and I talked to a lot of them on the phone to say Merry Christmas before they started Christmas dinner.

After Christmas day was over we just kind of relaxed in Kosice until it was time to go to our Winter Conference on the 28th. All in all, we really enjoyed our Christmas and even though we missed being with family we made some good memories here too!