Week 15: Christmas Time is Here

I was back to work in the office this week, able to help mail things again and work on revising guides for people in detention. I finished my first knitting project (a pot holder) and baked more sour dough bread and made sour dough pancakes. We had MVS support committee members over for dinner on Tuesday night, our MVS coordinator, Lisa, joined us on Thursday night, we went out for drinks with the Jesuit Volunteers on Friday night, we biked and took public transportation all over Tucson on Saturday, and Sunday night we're joining the the MVS support committee for a Christmas party! Not much in this week is screaming Christmas to me (except for the party), especially when I still get hot and start sweating in the sun when I'm outside (although, we did get quite a bit of rain last weekend).

It's a different kind of Christmas season, for sure. But we're sharing some Christmas traditions with each other as a house. A cloud of cinnamon hovered over our living room while we made cinnamon applesauce ornaments and watched Knives Out. We've had a little advent gift to open every day (thanks Michaela's mom!). We've also taken advantage of some "cooler" days to make soup and other foods we associate with cold weather.

We did finish a Christmas themed puzzle and, for the third time in a row, we were missing a piece! We think that the last two puzzles were maybe secluded in our laundry/bike room because they were both missing pieces. So, I put a piece of masking tape on each box that says, "missing 1 piece" so the next VSers are aware.

The sharp eye will notice two missing pieces here. We ended up finding one of them under the puzzle but I didn't take another picture.

Saturday, our excursions around town included a neighborhood party at a near-by park, a "Soap-en House" hosted by a Shalom member (and our neighbor), and a bus ride downtown to the 4th ave street fair. This was a good full day and a reminder of all the fun things waiting for us outside of our house and normal routines. These are new "Christmas season" experiences unique to Tucson and our MVS community!