Church Christmas and Soccer

I headed out to church with 4 large bags of gifts for the four children I (and my Mom) sponsored for Christmas. The bags were heavier than I expected and I got quite an arm workout from carrying them.

Luckily I was able to catch a bus from the subway to church and only had to go up some stairs to cross the big street to get to church. I arrived and went into the chapel, only to find the Christmas party happening where we normally have mass. The woman selling tickets said that mass was being held in the small chapel up the hill. (I went there for Ash Wednesday mass in the spring) I hiked up there and we had to wait for the German mass to finish before going in.

After mass, they told everyone to join the Christmas party that had started after the 9am mass and that it would continue until 2 or 3pm. So I headed back down and went in. I bought some tickets to use to buy food from the many stalls set around the space. The countries represented in food selling were Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, USA, France and of course Korea. I got a plate of food from the Philippines since I will be going there soon and wanted to try some food beforehand. Then I got some dessert from the US (Cheesecake-in cupcake form- and lemon pound cake). Both were really good, but the cheesecake. Wow. Just wow. Way better than mine! They had a few people sing some Christmas songs and they were doing raffles for presents. I decided I'd take off because I wasn't really able to find anyone to chat with and I didn't do the raffle.

When I got home, I did some more research and planning for my trip to Cebu. I think I've squared everything away and decided what I'm going to do and when. Then, it took me about 10 minutes to layer up for soccer and I walked there.

This week we had 6 of us and there were 7 high school boys. It was nice because we could play the whole time-especially nice when it's so cold. I don't want to sit out and wait when it's that cold. The high school boys really beat up on us. When we had about 30 minutes left, we swapped 3 of us for 3 of them so our teams were mixed. I had a lot of shots on goal this week, but none went in.

Gifts ready to go!

My plate of food from Philippines stall

Christmas party! This is where we normally have mass