Holiday Party Drei

Last night was the third installment of holiday parties.  All the C-town PCVs & VSO (and one honorary, might-as-well-be-a-native-speaker, Mongolian) came over to my place for a feast and gift exchange.  We ate until it hurt, laughed until we cried, and got nostalgic sharing holiday stories from home.  The menu included:

Veggies & Ranch
Cheese & Crackers
Deviled Eggs
Baked Ham
Baked Fish
Chicken with White Wine-Cream Sauce
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
Curried Lentils
Italian Veggie-Pasta Salad
Fruit Salad
Pumpkin Pie
Cranberry & Carrot Cake
Chocolate Biscotti
Mongol Cake
Wassail, Coffee, Peppermint Green Tea, Peppermint Hot Chocolate

Yum.

And now, a few photos:

 My jujur decorated the stairwell for New Year's.

 Oh yes I did!  Yule Log!

 Happy holidays from C-Town!

After everyone else left, Koty and I watched "Little Women."  It was a nice way to wind down after a busy day of cooking, hosting and socializing.

Holiday Party Deux

This afternoon I have the privilege of attending the Association of Parents with Disabled Children's Shine Jil (New Year) party.  I absolutely love these ladies.  They work so hard for such a great cause.  And the kids, beyond adorable.

 Some of the kids waiting for things to get started.

 The MCs.

 Oyunsuren, the APDC director.

 Great singer!

 Then out came Santa/Grandfather.

 What did I say!?  ADORABLE!

 The first dance performance.  The clown was going around in the crowd entertaining the kids.

 During another song, this little girl wandered up on stage and instead of shooing her away, the older girl had her sing the rest of the song.

 Another dance.

 AMIRIGHT!?

 This guy was poppin' poses the whole afternoon.

 RUFFLES!

 Liz (VSO) and Sarah (PCV) made a friend.

 Lots of kids were in deels.

 CANDY!  Every kid got a gift bag.

 Loved her red boots.

 Then time for group shots...

Apocalypse...

...What apocalypse!?  It's been 12.21.12 for about 11 hours now and so far we're all still alive and kicking.  Although with the time zones, the apocalypse is supposed to hit at 5:11pm Mongol time, so I guess we've still got about 6 hours.  If the apocalypse does hit, it won't be raining fire, we'll instead freeze to death:

 

This was at 8am.  It definitely felt like 39 below on my walk to school this morning...BRRRR!!  :(

 And because nothing says "Happy holidays!" like celebrating on the apocalypse, here's a photo from our Foreign Language Department's holiday lunch/Secret Santa gift exchange Friday afternoon. 

Holiday Party Numero Uno

Last night we celebrated the holidays with our Access students.  It was so much fun, but very bittersweet as well.  See, the Access program is only for two years and all these kids are finished at the end of next week.  I've been teaching them for the last year and a half and to say that I've grown very fond of them is an understatement.  Because they are the highest English-language level students in the city, we are often able to digress from the text and have real conversations about anything and everything.  They are a wonderful bunch of kids and I will miss them dearly. 

 Altanshand was the MC.

 Latin Ballroom performance by School 8 (with a few ringer boys as their partners).

 Goomaral playing One Republic's "Secrets."

 Shine Khogjil skit.

 Altanzaya singing a Mongolian song.

 B. Nomin-Erdene playing the piano.

 Girls from School 6 singing "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree."

 Battuul thanking the teachers.  I cried.

 Binderya introducing the first game.

 It's EXACTLY what it looks like.

 Game two: Teachers act out an animal, student partner draws it then writes a funny sentence.  I was an elephant.

 We didn't win, but I was still very proud of my Goomaral.

 The cake!

 Group shot, including library staff.

 The students presented each of us teachers with a small gift.

 Shine Khogjil REPRESENT!

 The teachers: Nemekhee, Koty, me, Zoloo, Sarah.

With Binderya, recreating our Halloween photo. :)

Three more parties to go: APDC on Saturday, expats on Sunday, and my school on the 30th.  Happy holidays!