another epic christmas: part 1.

We can’t really find a way to make our neighborhood Christmas less epic. There is just something about it being three or four hundred people that just inevitably makes it an epic undertaking!

This year was great, though–it felt even more like a group effort; like we were throwing a party together rather than two of us hosting three hundred people.

We kicked off Christmas week with a Bingo night, which was a huge hit. I’m telling you, crowds will come for miles to play Bingo–and they did! I ended up calling from the table, and Stephen & I had to take turns because we kept losing our voices shouting the numbers!

On Thursday, we started at the market at 7am. Thida & I went after food for 300 people. For just $225, we managed to provide for 400 people in the end!  We bought 40 kilos of noodles–40 kilos of dry noodles.

Which, once you start to boil them, turns into a whole, whole lot of noodles.

They then added in a whole host of chopped veggies and chicken.

I was so proud that Thida bought so many veggies to mix in! This is probably the most well-balanced meal we’ve ever served, as well as fulfilling for everyone. And it served 400 people!

They then boiled over 300 eggs for extra protein.

While all this was being chopped, boiled, and stir-fried outside, we had more going on inside.

First, we had the Flour & Flower ladies making cookies as thank you gifts for our customers. We made four batches of snickerdoodles and four batches of gingerbread cut-outs.

These all were packaged up for the next day, when we’d include them with bread & flower deliveries.

We also had San Aye sewing, because it was a Thursday.

And we had hosts of kids playing outside. And posing for jumping photos!

Then we had some kids inside, playing with their youngest siblings and the Flour & Flower babies. Here each eleven-year-old had their own babe that they were rocking and singing to sleep! 😍

Then the food prep moved it’s way inside, where the noodles were packaged into individual containers and put into bags. In addition to noodles, each person received a hard-boiled egg, a few pieces of fruit, and a small bag of cookies. We had all these packaged and in piles around the house, so that they could be handed out that evening.

Around 3pm, Stephen and I slipped away to have lunch before the chaos truly started. Sometimes we go through life looking as though we have a newborn. Really, we just have a big community!

{Part 2 of our epic Christmas in this lovely community to come.}