Christmas Day in Slovakia!

Here is our day in pictures!!  :-)

The "kids" opened their quasi-stockings -  St. Mikulas bags - first thing in the morning!
 Then we had our Christmas morning breakfast together.

Santa hats and warm clothes from Connecticut.  :-)

The Emerald City page on the pop-up book from Clinton!!

Santa hats all around!!  :-)

Hello Santa Paul!!  

Merry Christmas from Liptovsky Mikuláš!!

O.K. - here is the GOOFY version of the Christmas photo!!   LOL!!  

This is a re-creation of a photo from a Christmas Past in the Olson family.    :-)  

Our authentic Slovak Christmas dinner with the Chaloupka family.  

The other end of the table - we had such a delicious meal!  

Unbelievable sweets for dessert!

The Vah River runs right behind the yard, and Roman fishes there!

The Olson and Chaloupka men!  Our hosts treated us royally!!

The Olson and Chaloupková women!!  :-)  We were blessed by a wonderful day with this lovely family!

After we got home again, we read the Christmas story and the daily devotions together, and  then sang many, many carols in 4-part harmony.  After that, we all did a little caroling in our building wearing our Santa hats.  

Our neighbor on the the ground floor of our building.  We went Christmas caroling at her door in the evening!
She greets us with a smile each time we see her - what a sweet lady!!  

We went caroling at the Betko's too - this is our landlady, Luba, and her family - daughter Lenka at the left!
They take such good care of us here in our building!

We also did some skyping with the U.S. to share Christmas wishes.  It was a wonderful day  together, though the kids are getting a little tired of wearing the same clothes every single day.  Still no luggage delivery on Christmas day --- emails promise delivery on the 26th.  

This is one of the oblatky given to us by our students.  It is the best summary of our day!!
Merry Christmas to everyone --- Gloria in excelsis Deo!!