House Guests

Our office is the size of a small house. The upkeep makes me grateful for my one bedroom apartment, especially this past week as we prepped our office for a holiday open house. I’m pretty partial to event planning, but my drive to have everything perfect sometimes makes for some long hours! 

Our office had collected more than a hundred stockings from family and friends in the United States, and with the help of volunteers, we stuffed them with an assortment of delectable delights. 

What a wonderful invention Pandora has proven to be, this time helping to stream holiday music through our office. We had stockings set out next to our makeshift fireplace (I’ll probably never have another job where arts and crafts hold such a predominant place on the list of responsibilities) and I put fresh batteries in our light strings so they had a vivid twinkle. We even found an old Red Cross banner to hang in our already festive office, which I am now referring to as our house. 

The holiday season would not be complete without the showing of The Christmas Story which we played in the internet café, along with other classics. But the thing that stole the show was not necessarily anything mentioned above, or the assortment of typical party food. It was the competition!

The key to any successful event, especially involving the military is a little friendly competition. Thanks to my mom for figuring out how to keep sugar cookies intact across thousands of miles. You made the cookie decorating competition possible! One of my favorite Christmas past times is decorating cookies, and so I was happy to bring a memory of my own home to our Red Cross home here in Balad. 

With an assortment of different colored frosting, sprinkles, and cookies in the shape of Christmas trees and snowmen, there was plenty of room for creativity, and an enjoyable time for all involved, including the staff. I must share that we lost one cookie (luckily after the judging had occurred) to someone who probably thought they tasted as good as they looked. But I’m thinking he/she might have been in for a tummy ache; they had been sitting out quite awhile!

All in all an excellent start to an eventful week here in Balad.