merry merry christmas

this december has been surprisingly cold outside. when we first came to korea it was cold but we were told not to turn on the floor heat in the apartment because the cost of it was so high. (apartments here have heated floors instead of central heat) so we plugged in an electrical heater and thought nothing more of it. turns out, it was just as expensive if not more so. our bill was the highest in our building (something i'm slightly proud of) and a government official was sent to our house to find out why we were wasting so much electricity. i guess we know better for next year.

we were debating whether or not to get a tree but the holiday season just doesn't seem the same without one. we went to homeplus (the local supermarket) to look for one. we saw a lot of decorations and decided to come back the next week to pick some out. by the time we got back to the store, around the 10th of december, everything was sold out. they had a sad looking fake tree and some bulb ornaments left. we decided that we would try out luck at finding a tree out back, and by out back we mean the mountain that sits behind our apartment complex. the mister did an amazing job at finding the perfect charlie brown tree and even made a stump holder for it. i was in charge of making homemade ornaments and decorations...never again. it was kind of like our idea to string popcorn for our tree last year. we made it half way around one side of the tree and stopped. i enjoyed the first hour or so of making the ornaments and then wanted to give up. i have never folded so much paper in my life. you would think i was majoring in origami. but now it's done and over and we're going to try to save all of them for next year somehow so we can sit back and enjoy more of the season.

korea is predominantly christian but when it comes to christmas there's not a lot of celebration. the day is more seen of as a day to hang out with friends and your significant other than it is to be with family. we spent the day making crepes and mexican food with friends and watching old christmas movies. the perfect way to relax before heading back to work the next day.

these are salt dough ornaments that are really common to make with children. we tried them with our kindi classes too.

this one was probably the easiest of them all. you simply cut a star shape out of cardstock paper and fold along each point. then fold the insides so it kind of pops out. then glue two of them back to back to make a tree topper or the ornaments.

the amazing bottom that jeremy made for the tree

we'll be heading to japan tomorrow and we can't wait for a getaway! i'll be sure to get pictures posted when we get back! merry christmas!