Christmas in October

October 12, 2015 – Christmas Day in October

                It was so cold. It was as cold as that other random “winter day” we had or maybe even a little colder. It technically is spring here right now, but it is still blazing hot almost every day, except for this one random day. When I woke up at 5:15 I began to question if we would have a normal school day. Candace and I began to talk about it and she crawled in bed with me because it was so cold. One of the boys came to our house and told us that we were not having our 5:30 worship together, but just in our own houses. This was a start to a great day. Candace and I honestly continued to stay curled up in my bed to keep warm and eventually she had to go to the kitchen. I fell back asleep and right around 6:30 Kevin yelled to me that we would have staff worship at 6:30, so I finally got out of bed. With many layers of clothes on, I went to staff worship where slowly but surely all of the staff came. After worship Miguel told us that we would not be having class that day. For some reason it already kind of felt like Christmas. Miguel had his laptop and started playing Christmas songs. Miguel, Andrew, Daniella, Candace, Darian, and I all put our arms around each other and swayed back and forth to the tunes of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and other wonderful Christmas songs. When Miguel played “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” we had to bring out a roll of toilet paper because the emotions got real. After enjoying many Christmas songs together for a little while I went back to my house to check on my girls. I told them that we weren’t having class and that they all needed to put on more clothes because it was so cold. For breakfast that morning we had breakfast burritos for the first time (with real eggs) and hot tea. Something was more special about this morning too because Miguel had some kitchen kids serve all of the plates and cups on each table. After breakfast I went back to my house with my girls and let them come into my room. Mica and Joca got in my hammock, Keila got in my bed with me, Rosa got in Candace’s hammock, and I put out the mattress on the floor for Maria and Estefanie. I was so happy because literally just the day before I had downloaded some Christmas music to my laptop. All of the girls were in my room and I played my Christmas music, which they didn’t understand at all. Keila began to look through the pictures on my laptop (which all of my girls have done a million times) and I really noticed that I have a ton of pictures from the Christmas season. Honestly I had convinced myself that it was Christmas on this random day in October. We continued to hang out in the house for the rest of the morning and until lunch. At lunch Miguel said he wanted us to watch a staff only movie in English, which obviously ended up being a Christmas movie. Right before the movie Kevin brought over a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie that apparently some of them had made in Miguel’s house that morning. Miguel also brought stuff to make hot chocolate with it, so it was obvious that all of us were under the impression that it was Christmas. We watched two cheesy Christmas movies, The Heart of Christmas and The Christmas Shoes, as we sipped on our hot chocolate and ate our pie. Many of us sobbed throughout the Christmas shoes, but we all enjoyed it very much. Soon after our movies we had vegetable soup for dinner and then all went back to our different houses. The older boys had a little fire behind their house (compliments of Andrew) so my girls and I decided that we would have a fire too. Right there in our front yard we collected random sticks and leaves and things and made a little fire of our own. We all sat around the fire and eventually started singing hymns (in Spanish of course) and had worship out there. The next day turned back to normal with classes, work, and heat; but Christmas was good while it lasted.