2 pieces of Advice and a foto link

Piece of Advice #1
NEVER EVER go shopping on Christmas Eve!
It's really almost not worth it. I had never gone shopping on Dec 24th before and now I know why. Something that could have taken an hour and a half-or maybe less- took 4 hours! I don't ever plan on going again, but I was desperate. I was longing to make some Christmas cookies and the plan was to make them that afternoon and I hadn't had the chance to go shopping earlier. And of course the cookies I wanted to make required ingrediants that aren't supercommon here. Molasses-oh man I should have looked for that in AutoMercado (the expensive grocery store). I just ended up doubling the brown sugar. Thankfully chocolate chips do exist here, but not in Mas x Menos (a not so expensive grocery store). So, yes we went to 2 jam-packed full with ridiculous lines grovery stores. But, mint extract was nowhere to be found. And not ONE candy cane was able to be found in AutoMercado. Rich snobs. Who doesn't sell candy canes? Maybe they'd sold out. I don't know. I know they exist here though because I saw them in Palí (the really cheap grocery store). Whatever. I used round peppermint candies. They're pretty much the same anyway. And as for the mint extract, You won't believe this. I think it's hilarious. Peppermint Altoids! They are curiously strong... And let me tell you, those chocolate mint cookies were SOOOOOOOOOO DELICIOUS!!!! I made the cookies at my friend Ana Victoria's house and I am also friends with her kids (Diana, Felipe and Verónica), so I spent the night too. To testify to the amazing deliciousness of my cookies, Felipe got up at 3am to go work at the airport and found some cookies for breakfast and couldn't help but exclaim aloud ¡Qué buenas galletas! (What great cookies!) That made me laugh, and feel very happy. Pictures will be appearing soon.

Piece of Advice #2
This is especially for guys because we girls already know this. Girls never cry about just one thing. I feel like maybe I've talked about this before, but I don't know. Sometimes the littlest thing will set us off and make us cry, so we're not really crying about that one thing, but that is part of it.
I'm not big on talking about crying. I'm definitely a weep by myself kind of girl, unless my parents or a really really really really really really really close friend is around. But, I'll tell you a little bit to explain myself better.
This year was my first Christmas out of the country and away from biological relatives. Last year I wasn't with my parents, but I was with my aunt, uncle and cousins that are closest to me and then we went to Grandma and Grandpa Gates'. And I saw my parents a couple days later. (I'm not going to see my parents again until August. That's a long time, but I know it will come quickly!) Thanks be to God, Christmas this year went really well and I had a great day (more on that later). But yes, I did miss my folks.
So, there I was at the Christmas Eve service at church. it was really nice-with lots of special music. And a few times I got quite choked up. Was it because I missed my parents? Yes, but it was also because of some other things. As I believe I've mentioned in previous posts and definitely in e-mails to various people-sometimes throughout the month of the December I would totally forget it was even Advent and that Christmas was coming. It made me contemplate a lot about the way Christmas is/perhaps should be celebrated, but I wasn't able to really meditate on the season. Maybe that's my fault more than anything else, but I didn't have much around me encouraging me to do so. And that always helps. People around here celebrate Christmas really differently.
So on Christmas Eve it finally really started to feel like Christmas. And again realizing the amazing love of God, the holy mysterious miracle of the Incarnation of Christ, contemplating that night in Bethelehem and the shepherds and and angels-it was just one of those "wonder of Christmas" kind of moments I used to always read about the in Guidepost Christmas Treasury and that brought tears too. get it? good.

And here is the foto link. These are pictures of the trip to Isla Venado. Sorry I forgot to give you the link last time. Christmas pictures will come soon!