Christmas celebration in Beersheva

Two weeks before Christmas Lee and I put together baskets for the branch members. It was fun deciding what to put in and then shopping for the items.  We visited two Christmas shops in the Old City, but didn't buy anything there--it was just fun to be around traditional Christmas items. We also celebrated Masha's birthday the night we gave out the baskets.  Several members weren't at the meeting so we drove to their homes and delivered the baskets.  Anca and Liviu were really happy that we stopped by and Zoya took baskets to Marina and Iryna.

In our apartment getting ready

Julia, Tanya and her daughter, Maria (Masha), Shawna, Zoya, Liza

On December 26th, we arrived home from our Egypt trip in the morning and by afternoon were driving to BeerSheva for the Christmas celebration.  We had made the dinner (beef stew and Christmas cookies) ahead of time and also asked the members to bring items that said "Christmas" to them.  Lee was just coming down with "Pharoah's Revenge" and could barely drive us to BeerSheva. After he prepared, blessed and passed the Sacrament (after copious amounts of hand sanitizer) he went to one of the bedrooms and slept while I conducted Sacrament meeting--I teased him that he presided, but I conducted!  After the meeting we had our Christmas celebration