Khertvisi Castle, Khertvisi, Georgia

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

'Tis the Season!

Another Peace Corps Christmas has come and gone, filled with a fun combination of old traditions and new, odd substitutions from here and wonderfully appreciated authentic elements sent from home.

Sam fulfilled his Goal Two by baking tons of Christmas cookies. He made gingerbread boys, sugar cookies and peanut butter cookies, and sent our host grandmother off to spread the word of this mythical male who not only bakes, but bakes delicious, gorgeous cookies! Even though the cookies were gobbled up within a few days, her tales of Sam's superhero abilities continue to be related to any new guest who hasn't yet heard. Sam plans on tackling a few more batches before New Year's as well.

Here goes another batch...
Some of the yummy results of Sam's labors
That crazed look that only dozens of batches of Christmas cookies can inspire

Shortly before the winter break from school, our host brother's class had their Winter Program. This wasn't quite the same routine I'm used to seeing from countless holiday concerts in America. First, the dress code was a little confusing. In his class of about 18 kids, 6 dressed in costumes (including 3 Spidermen, 1 teddy bear, 1 musketeer and 1 kid in a cape with a cat mask), 4 girls wore fluffy white dresses and everyone else wore jeans and sweaters. Our host sister in the audience dressed in her fancy dress, complete with princess crown and jewels. Santa Claus and the Snow Queen (two kids from my 11th grade class) made an appearance, and the children sang songs, recited poems and played classic holiday games (like bowl over the party hat to win the candy inside, race around the tree and grab the bells first, and dance with a partner keeping the balloon between your backs without letting it fall).

Singing and dancing, in costume or not
Some of the varied outfits of the class
Lilit, with Shaen-Spiderman (right) and a rather festive Spiderman classmate

My parents and Sam's mom helped make our actual Christmas day super awesome by putting us up at the Courtyard Marriott in Tbilisi for three nights. We swam, we watched English-language TV channels, we hot-tubbed, we showered daily, we slept in a ridiculously comfortable bed with real pillows... basically, we lived in amazing luxury for three nights and four days, forgetting for a few moments here and there that we were Peace Corps volunteers.

Tbilisi is a great place for the holidays for a lot of reasons. They go all out in their lights displays, putting up enough bulbs to make Clark Griswold blush. We were able to go to a Christmas mass in English, which was a nice treat as well. And, of course, there's all the food joys of Tbilisi. Per the Kuhlman family tradition, we ate pizza on Christmas eve. Then we ate donuts for breakfast and then had pasta and salad and ice cream on Christmas, and had supremely delicious Indian food for the day after.

The St. George's Column, transformed into a New Year's Tree, in Freedom Square, Tbilisi (the Courtyard Marriott is just to the right)
Now we're back in Akhalkalaki, gearing up for New Year's (the holiday that's celebrated big time in Georgia). This week will include a lot of food preparation, last-minute cleaning and many, many repetitions of "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" by our host siblings.

Lilit shows off the New Year's tree

With only 3 more days until 2012 and 4 more days of the Holiday Running Streak, we wish you and yours a very happy holiday season!

2 comments:

  1. Is there an email where I can ask you guys a question?

    I'm an RPCV from Bulgaria

    Happy Holidays!
    Jon

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Jon!

    You can email me at mkuhlman AT gmail DOT com any time. I'll do my best to answer your question.

    Happy holidays to you as well!

    Melissa

    ReplyDelete