Our simple Christmas happiness

Tonight Julie - our field coordinator suggested a little Christmas tree ornament party at Manila House (You see, we have five expatriate houses in the mission, each with very special names to make us feel extra special!) For the house and the simple Christmas tree we bought earlier, we had to decorate something out of nothing, so after work today my housemates and I stayed in the house to fold lucky stars with white paper stripes, we then stringed them together in a long sewing thread to wrap around the tree. (And, it was surprisingly beautiful!) We arrived at the “party” at 8pm and found the little Christmas tree with some simple decoration awaiting for us, together with 10 other expatriates. We continued to use the most basic materials to make the most creative things you can ever imagine; threading raw spaghetti together and hang it across the ceiling, cutting out MSF logo from previous expatriates’ torn shirt to make little decoration for the Christmas tree, making the tree-top star with paper toilet roll. At the end, I made some Japanese origami swans with napkins and string them together with a thread to hang from the ceiling, the girls were so excited, I found myself holding an “origami lesson”! After this night, I realize one doesn’t need a lot of money to enjoy Christmas and the most interesting part is, that’s what Christmas is truly about. It’s not about spending hundreds of dollars buying gifts and decorations, but to simply enjoy accompanies whom you share a good laugh with. From Sierra Leone, I wish everyone a very happy new year :)