This afternoon, one of our friends from India invited us to come cook with him in his dormitory, along with a lot of other people from other countries . We told him we'd come, bringing American food to cook with them, but ended up bringing a plate full of sweets from a Christmas party we had the night before...I guess a plate full of really sweet food is probably as American as it gets. So we got there and this sweet man handed us a bag, a grocery sack full of mutton and some carrots, and a bag full of unmarked spices and told us to make something American of it. So Lynds, Erin and I traveled up a few floors to the weirdest kitchen ever and scrounged around for some kind of remotely clean pan to cook with. We cut some vegetables on the counter with some knife we found in someone's room, and just started throwing stuff in this skillet. The situation was just so unclean and random, yet hilarious. I was gagging from the smell of mutton rising in the smoke off the skillet. We used a large butcher knife to saute the foods, because no spoon was around. We washed the pan out with laundry detergent before we cooked with it. It was just one of those situations where you step back and just laugh at how you found yourself doing what you're doing at that moment. I loved it.

We got back today from a weekend of hanging out with friends for Christmas time. Our Christmas party last night was incredible- the food was better than Thanksgiving- we had Rotel cheese dip, soups, homemade beer bread with homemade honey butter, eggnog from scratch, and 12 different homemade desserts. We got to sing Christmas carols together and just enjoy the night with games and taking a million pictures by the Christmas tree. This weekend was so encouraging to have family around me, celebrating and anticipating the greatest holiday we celebrate!