Christmas Day 2011 in Mongolia

So, Christmas Day started out pretty "traditionally" for us with opening gifts with our family.  The non-traditional part was that it was done over skype!  Here, we're skyping w/Heather (I have just opened a scarf she had wrapped and sent along with us back in August).  Thanks, Heather!

A few hours later we had our teammates and four Mongolian and Chinese friends in for breakfast before church.  Here we are with Handa (left) and Bayarkhuu (right).  We met Handa only two days earlier on the bus and visited with her for an hour in heavy traffic!  You can become good friends with someone on an hour bus ride!  Before this day, Handa equated Christmas and New Year's as the same holiday. 

This Mongolian man sang a beautiful rendition of a song about Jesus being "my Savior, my friend" (I could catch those Mongolian words!).  He had an awesome voice.  This was part of our Sunday morning Christmas Day service we attended.  It was well done.  Our friends who ate breakfast with us came along to see what Christmas is all about.

This mom and her son have been to Rochester, MN, for her son's heart surgery.  They have met some of our friends in Rochester.  They accompanied us at the Christmas concert/drama mentioned in the previous picture.  Here, we're at an Indian restaurant.  This was the most non-traditional Christmas meal we have ever had!

Dalai went to the Russian border with us this past fall.  He has become a really good friend.  His girlfriend from Inner Mongolia, China, has come to UB to live for awhile.  She has also become a good friend!  These Chinese friends were part of our Indian Christmas Dinner in Mongolia...talk about truly international!

And here's the rest of the gang who hung out at the Indian restaurant...our two teammates on the right, and the new Mongolian friends on the left.

After lunch, some of us visited the ice sculptures about two blocks from the Indian restaurant.  Here is the Statue of Liberty.  There were many sculptures representing places of importance for several countries with a high influence on Mongolia.

And then another block away, we just had to get our picture taken with Santa and the Giant Christmas Tree!

This tree is in Sukhbaatar Square.  Stay tuned for New Year's Eve pictures which will have this tree lit up in its full glory!

We went home for an hour and then ventured out again to attend The Nutcracker Suite, Mongolian ballet.  Kevin was given two tickets as a gift from the school where he teaches high schoolers.  It was so well done, with live music and ballet dancers who had stamina beyond my imagination!

This is the theatre where the ballet took place.  It definitely had a royal, rustic ambiance to it.  I'm sure it was built during the Russian occupance era.

So, even though we were far from family, we were kept busy with some great relationship-building times.  We were so happy to introduce Handa and Bayarkhuu to the historical reality of how Christmas began.  We are looking forward to our continued relationship with all of these dear friends!