Well the snow and the cold temperatures have continued to bless us with their presence over this past week:-) Temperatures below freezing, and several days with temperatures below 0, have been the norm so far.
With wintry weather and the end of the semester breathing down our necks, what else can we do but begin to think about Christmas?
This weekend our goal was to decorate our house for Christmas. As a part of this goal, today we made yet another voyage to our favorite store: IKEA! IKEA has rapidly gone from a novelty store catering to the slightly higher-end hip/mod consumer to a necessity. In the U.S. we had gone to IKEA a grand total of 1 time, and that was only about a month before our departure. However, upon arriving in St. Petersburg we have paid 5 visits so far. Prices are higher in Russia, but quality often is not in the world of home wares, so IKEA has become our go-to place for affordable things that won't quickly break. But this is not an advertisement for a Swedish furniture retailer, it is a post about how our latest trip to IKEA has provided our recently acquired Christmas tree with ornaments!
Technically, what we have is a New Year's tree since New Year's is the big holiday in Russia, but we thought we could put it to use on multiple holidays:-) As usual, we have a few pictures of our decorating.
Moving quickly to our other main preoccupation here, life goes on quickly at school with the semester ending in two weeks and grades due at the end of this week. To top it off, we have our Christmas play and band/choir concerts this coming Friday. As you can probably imagine this has created something of a frantic atmosphere at school as everyone realize that there is too little time to get too much done.
As an added bonus, people have begun to drop like flies due to sickness:-( We have teachers in and out all week as various strains of the flu strike St. Petersburg. So far we have been blessed with good health, but just yesterday Amanda started feeling sick and went home early from school. Thankfully, she is feeling much better today, but it's just another reminder that this is the time of year for viruses and flu bugs and colds to strike. The biggest problem has been the number of teachers affected. With such a small school we don't have any substitute teachers so if someone is sick that leaves all the rest of the teachers scrambling to cover their classes. As a school, we would greatly appreciate your prayers for the health of our teachers and students so that we can finish this semester strong and in good health!
And now, some photos to get you in the mood for the Holidays!
Amanda decorating our wonderful (artificial) tree!
Some fun window decorations that Amanda's family mailed us recently.
Our box of wonderfully Scandinavian-looking straw ornaments!
Our tree:-D We decorated it with tinsel to make it look like the Russian flag.
Ornament close up.
Another ornament close up (please forgive the glare from the tinsel)
In lieu of an angel atop our tree we have . . . Hello Kitty!!!
Whoa, who is that handsome devil?
And to top it off, two red straw reindeer to sit atop the windowsill in our living room.
That's all for now!
Matt
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