Мэрри Крыстмас!

OK, so obviously that's not really how to say "Merry Christmas" in Russian, but I thought it would be funny just to transliterate the English words to see what it would look like.

Like many of you, we've been really, really busy over the past week. Sorry about the delay in blogging, but we've been going to parties, having friends over, going to more parties - in short, trying to soak up as much Russian culture (and food, of course) as possible in a short few days.

I'll let the pictures do the explaining:
OK, so last week I mentioned that we had been to our family group's birthday celebration (they have been getting together for 15 years now!). Here's a picture of the big event. Basically, we went over to a school building for the evening and had supper together. Pizza and appetizers, with fruit and tea and desserts thrown in. It was a good time, even if the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"-style game was in Russian and a little beyond us.

One of the appetizers was bread with caviar on it, so Steven got to try some for the first time. He actually quite liked it, so hopefully that's a good sign he's getting accultured!

One of the other treats we've had recently was a trip to an actual American restaurant - TGIFridays! Every year, our coworkers have made a tradition of taking our teacher and secretary out to eat here. It's been a bit out of our price range, but B's parents contributed towards our meal so we had a good time and some really good food.

My favorite of our several Christmas and New Years' celebrations so far was a trip we made last Sunday to a family member's for lunch. Our family group had an arrangement where you could sign up to be guests or hosts for Christmas lunch, so we signed up to be guests. We ended up going to the apartment of someone we'd never met before, to eat with a bunch of other people we'd never met (we had seen some of them in our meetings but not spoken). Continued below..
It was a fantastic time! Besides getting to meet a bunch of new friends, we also got to eat some outstanding food. We went straight to their house after the meeting, expecting to eat "lunch." Not having eaten breakfast, we were a little hungry, but they said that we had come a little early and we were more than welcome to sit and chat with them. We chatted for a couple of hours, tummies grumbling, before I asked when everyone else would arrive. "Around 4," was the answer, which turned out to be an optimistic estimate. We didn't end up eating until 5:30, but it was well worth the wait.

Our host was from the Caucasus area, and he prepared a feast of epic proportions of native Ossetian dishes. Hot pizza-dough-like bread stuffed with cheese and potatoes, all kinds of salads, cheesy meat dishes, fruits, we had it all. You can see from the picture above what the table looked like when they finished loading it up.

Also last weekend, B and our new coworker Julie got together to bake Christmas and New Year's cookies for gifts (and just to eat ourselves, of course)! Here they're slaving over the oven making various and sundry scrumptious treats.

Here is one of my favorite items they made in construction - candied apples. For those of you who enjoy those overpriced-but-very-yummy things you can buy at malls sometimes for $7 an apple, you can make your own and they're just as good! Here the apples have been dipped in caramel and nuts and are waiting to get their coat of chocolate drippings (the frosting in the foreground is for something else).
Of course, we had to have them pose with the results of their labor - fudge, candied apples, cookies, candied pecans, and magic bars. They've since packaged them up into individual baggies and we've been giving them out to neighbors and friends as New Year's gifts.

So, that's pretty much what we've been up to. Sorry we don't have any pictures of our last two days. Yesterday night we went over to our coworkers for supper (she made turkey and stuffing!) and games, which was great. The night before that we were at my language helper's apartment for supper and games as well. It's funny - when we first got here we were told that it might be a while before we'd get invited to any Russian's home. It is true that it is culturally longer before you have someone into your home here, but we seem to be finding that the real key is just waiting for a holiday! Then, all the cultural brakes seem to come off, and we've been able to go just about everywhere.

Anyway, we hope that you also had a very Merry Christmas, and that you'll have a Happy New Year as well. Thanks for thinking of us this year, and we hope you'll continue to do so in the new year to come.