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| Spoiled by not having to bake my own Christmas cookies! Cookies and chocolates made by the school's baker. Found the embroidered table decoration at a Coptic bookstore, the poinsettia was bought at an Armenian Christmas bazaar. |
Merry Christmas from Alexandria! This year's Christmas included traditional church programs, school programs, Christmas dinner with fellow Schutz faculty, Christmas trees, cookies, decorations, visits from family, parties with church family, singing Christmas carols, and parties with friends we have made here in Alexandria. Yes, it even included the whole corporate "Black Friday" with the mall decorated to the hilt with lights and Christmas decorations. It was not what we expected to see in the Middle East - how about you? (Just goes to show you how misleading our information is in the USA)
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| San Stefano Mall. It doesn't say "Happy Holidays" or even "Merry X-mas". This makes me wonder about the supposed "War on Christmas" that has some in the USA all fired up. |
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| Saxophone playing Santa hunt. For some reason, Santa plays the sax all over the city. |
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| It is a bit hard to see in the picture, but this is a Black Friday line into a small little store that only sells makeup! While most Egyptian women do cover their hair, (and therefore presumably spend less time on their hair) they seem to use that time on their faces. Many appear to be make-up experts! Most wear lipstick and decorate their already beautiful "Egyptian goddess" eyes. |
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| Corporate Christmas puke |
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| We thought Christmas trees might be difficult to find. We were wrong. |
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A Christmas display that showed up weeks before "Black Friday"
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Beyond the corporate idea of Christmas, we had some really lovely experiences that come much closer to the true meaning of Christmas. One day, we were sitting in our apartment which is across the street from the school. We are used to hearing music coming from a block or so away - whether it is a wedding or a funeral or a mosque, or even from a motorcycle that has really loud speakers! However, on this day, I heard "Silent Night" being played. Like the girl in "Twas the Night Before Christmas" who heard sleigh bells - I rushed to the window and threw open the sash - looking up and down the street for who might be playing this familiar Christian tune. It took me several minutes to realize that the school was testing their speakers as the PTA prepared for their annual Christmas carnival.
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| Hab and his amazing "jack-of-all-trades" staff did a great job of decorating the school for various activities. One of the most special to me was when the Rotary Interact Club (high school club) invited local worker's families (security, maintenance, maids, cooks, etc) to a special night with Santa. They provided games and crafts tables for all the kids, sang Christmas songs, then Santa presented them all with huge bags of age-appropriate gifts. Afterwards, the music was turned up REALLY loud (Egyptian style) and they danced for a couple of hours! |
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| The entire faculty gathered for a Christmas dinner of turkey and all the fixings before finishing the school week and everyone heading elsewhere for their Christmas celebrations. We patiently waited at Schutz for our children to arrive! |
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| A family from our church hosted a Christmas party for the church family. We sang Christmas carols, played some really fun games (this one was to decorate someone as a Christmas tree), and probably ate too much. (But all the food was so delicious!) |
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| For those who know Gary, this is generally where he can be found - playing with the youngest guests! |
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Selfies are big in Egypt. The study-abroad college students from Uganda, Kenya, and beyond arrived to the Christmas party just as the party was starting to wind down. Prior to their arrival, there was some discussion about all the food that was left over and what to do with it all. Well, God knew! Once they ate, almost everything was gone. I couldn't resist taking a picture of them - such a fun group, so full of energy!
Blogger is a very glitchy program. It won't let me post any more photos below this one tonight, so I will publish this post and continue with a bit more about our Christmas activities in Alexandria in another post. Stay tuned!
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