Monday, November 17, 2008

This One's for the Goodies!

Yahoo! I received 6 entries for the Fall Challenge #2 from all over the world. I love each and everyone's ideas and photos...thanks for taking the time to write in. And now, let the games begin. Everyone is invited to vote on their favorite by going over to the right sidebar and marking your vote in this week's poll.

I encourage all the women who entered to get ALL their friends to vote (for them). Remember the winner will be announced next Tuesday and the goodies (pecans, pumpkin filling and chocolate chips) will be mailed directly within a few days to hopefully reach the winner by Christmas!

Contestant # 1: Sarah, Botswana

My husband and I have served overseas in Botswana, Africa for almost 5 years now. While we swelter in over 100 degree temps you would never know walking into my home. We always decorate and celebrate as much as we would if we were in the US. Over the years I’ve learned to become very creative during the holidays and often times start asking for certain things to be sent over starting in July! Now that I have my own little one, it’s even more important to us to make sure that we keep our traditions alive. This year we hosted a “Harvest Party” for the Missionary Families. We baked goodies and the kids even did a bit of “trick or treating” in the house with their famous Shoprite bags. This picture is of me with “the spread”.


Contestant #2: Angie, Bolivia
My name is Angie. I serve in Bolivia, South America. Pictured here I am holding a mixing bowl ready for baking oatmeal cookies; the kids help me make mountains of cookies. Next, I painted and sent out advent candles to my family around the globe. We remember each other as we burn down one number a day from December 1st to the 25th. Lastly, you see a screen shot of an online radio station that streams Christmas music so I don't miss out on all the new songs; and it is English. Happy Holidays to all my Coffeegirl gals!


Contestant #3: Diane, Costa Rica

Fall in Costa Rica is non-existent as it will be in Ecuador’s jungle. The preschool teacher in me came out and I cut leaf shapes and attached them with thread to the window sill at different lengths. I found this vine wreath discarded on the side of the road, decorated it for fall with cut out foam leaves and substituted a green squash for a pumpkin, then transformed it again into winter. We hail from Maine and are spending a year in Costa Rica at language school before we head out to Shell, Ecuador. Like Coffeegirl said sometimes it’s the little things you bring from home. My mom and daughter-in-law sent down real pressed leaves!

Contestant #4: Ginny, RAC

The day before Halloween, my 2 little teammates and I headed out to get a pumpkin (which we heard would be no problem finding). We went to the closest market – nothing. So we made the 20 minute trip to the grocery store – nothing. Finally we went to another outdoor market that I knew would have pumpkins. Little did I know that [in this country] pumpkins are cut up and sold by the kilo for meat dishes. So we improvised as you can see by the picture. They had a blast and didn’t seem to notice their pumpkin was green and striped.

Contestant #5: Crystal, Thailand

First of all, I make pumpkin pies with homemade pumpkin pie filling (lots of them...this batch of two was for a Mom's Group Thanksgiving meal we were having (all of them are non-believers). I shared what Thanksgiving is and why, we as Christians give thanks. I then had them write what they were thankful for and why on some leaf cutouts and then we shared together. I am in the back (in the turquoise shirt) in the picture with all the Thai women who come to our Mom's Group.

I also decorate with our homemade cornucopia (from two years ago) and thanks to our parents we have a fresh bag of "spice pumpkin" potpourri to make the house smell like fall. . In the picture, I have the little leaves the women wrote on with their words of "thanks" to God surrounding the cornucopia.

And, this year, my oldest son and I made a Pilgrim hat and an Indian headband. Lots of fun! =) (Pictures attached of oldest son, PJ, sporting the Pilgrim hat and youngest son, Calvin aka "Squanto". We also watch A Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and The Mayflower Voyagers (another Peanuts cartoon but it's quite educational!). We usually get together with our teammates on Thanksgiving Day and have a feast (usually without the turkey) but it's a feast all the same! We reflect of God's goodness and faithfulness and thank HIM for His great salvation and the work He is doing in our lives.

Contestant #6: Shan, Japan

Hello from Japan! I like to go to Starbucks -- confession, I do not like coffee!-- and buy a hot chocolate. Then I go across the street to the walking path which is lined with trees. I purposely walk through the fallen leaves, even going off the path sometimes, just like my sister and I used to do on our way to and from school when we were little. It is even better when it is a crisp, cool day!

24 comments:

Sarah DeSalvo said...

Stink! how did I miss this challenge? I think with two sick kids I just did not have time to really read the last Coffeegirl entry, and totally missed this challenge! Oh well, I will vote for my girls anyway! How can I pick between them???

Sarah DeSalvo said...

And where's the poll???

amanda said...

off topic here, but is there a way to make the text to embed the worth picture of praise slide show?

I'd love to link to the slideshow from my blog as well.

Anonymous said...

Ah, such fun ideas! Love them all... although when I saw the carved watermelon I definitely laughed out loud!

Crystal in Thailand (or anyone else who knows!) - I've been asked to make a pumpkin pie for T-day and would love to get your recipe!!! :)

Coffeegirl said...

Hi Junglewife - the poll is in the upper right hand corner of the webpage, next to the main entry. I'm having fun watching the votes come in!

Amanda - I'll check with the WOTH office about the picture praise slide show. Love the idea of being able to link it to your blog!

Unknown said...

The creativity here is awesome! Unable to find any Fall decorations here I finally asked a team to bring some down with them. Finally got them set up, but not in time for the contest! Awesome ideas ladies and way to keep your own traditions alive and well!

Rebecca Conduff Aguirre said...

Yeah, guess I didn't make it either...but I wanted to! :) My husband was gone all week and it was stressful...didn't have the ánimo. But I love the pictures! They turned out great! Hard to choose...hmmm...

Crystal said...

calebandnicolette- check out my blog for the recipe...I'm posting it JUST for you! ;)

Crystal said...

Hi Coffeegirl, would you add me to your blogroll? It's www.henrysinthailand.blogspot.com and the title of our blog is Grace for the Moment.
Thanks! See you there!

Unknown said...

Great work Coffeegirls...hard to pick!
I like the idea of being able to stream the WOTH weekly pictures to our blogs....another great idea!

Rodger and Lynne Schmidt Mozambique said...

Thanks, girls, for all the lovely ideas and pictures. Our camera was stolen last month, so no pictures from this girl, just a funny story to tell!

Our first Thanksgiving in Mozambique, we invited national friends over. We couldn't find a whole turkey but found turkey legs. Our oven was so tiny, though, that we decided to grill them. You know, like at a Renaissance Festival! BAD IDEA! The meat was so tough, we couldn't even bite into it!

The funniest part of all, though, was that night when all of our guests had gone home and we started talking about why we could only get turkey legs. My husband had me laughing until I cried, envisioning little "legless" Turkeys rolling around like bowling balls!

This year will be special because our oldest son is coming home from his first term of boarding school, arriving on Thanksgiving Day!

I have a funny story for Christmas too, but I'll save that one!

Alan & Beth McManus said...

This was not a good week for pictures and sending things! Sorry, I couldn't join. I sure enjoyed seeing what everyone else did/does!

Being in the mountains in Mexico, while we don't get color changes, we do get COLD weather. I pull out my plastic Walmart Fall table-cloth. I put up my red and gold sheer curtains I made from the cheapest material I could find in the market. While they don't hang well, I can drape them to look nice. Then I pull out my tealight warmer and fill it with cloves, cinnamon sticks, and vanilla (cheap here). The dining room looks and smells great! It's the only room I decorate. And this year I found two HUGE pumpkins at the store, so we now have enough pumpkin frozen to last through next year! Yay!

Joy @ SAH Missionary said...

Hi. Thanks for the super fun holiday contest. Can you please add me to the blogroll?
Thanks!!

amanda said...

Thanks. I'll be looking forward to the answer.

Also, although I've mostly lurked till now (I was busy getting married for most of this year), I'd love to be added to the blogroll too.

Anonymous said...

Ahh, Crystal, THANK YOU!!! :)

Diana said...

Can you add my blog to the blog roll?
http://dianajomissionary.blogspot.com/

Preach and Heal said...

I hate that I just found out about your blog and contest. I had some great pictures of the kids celebrating fall here in Costa Rica with homemade ttpdecorations. I have to say the watermelon carving idea is a keeper! Would you please add me to the blog roll? We are http://www.nelsonpress.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

I am in the middle of packing up my house to move to our new one next month so the only decor going on around here are some flowers my hubby brought me home and candles. Oh! And I found some napkins at the store that are light green with shocks of wheat on them! I usually don't find anything Fall like around here so that was fun!
I am however really enjoying this contest so I can see what everyone else is doing and get great ideas for next year! Rootin' for one of my new online friends!

Michele Helms said...

Awesome post! I enjoyed reading it!

Women of the Harvest Blogs said...

To Amanda and all Coffeegirls...if you would like to embed Picture Praise onto your blog, I posted the link to get the HTML code on the right sidebar underneath the Poll where you all are voting. Let CG know if you have any trouble with making that work...Cindy, WOTH Editor

Phil and Pattie said...

I wish I would have had the time to do something for the contest but just did not. In fact, this morning, I was thinking that I really should do something at least for the kids to decorate but it has been hard with so much going on and gearing up for Christmas programs and all. The entries were all so really good and creative, it is really hard to pick one!

Phyllis said...

What radio station is it that Angie listens to? :-)

Anonymous said...

I think I pass this challenge. I am not at all into seasonal stuff. In Austria we enjoy fall, but we don't decorate our homes accordingly. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving like you do. And as for Christmas - if it is not a real fir tree with real candles, I don't bother. Usually I would be quite happy with just a few candles, but candles are not much fun when it is hot. I have no problem enjoying Christmas without any of these things.

As for the watermelon pumpkin replacement: in my experience, where ever there are slices of pumpkin, there are also whole pumpkins somewhere. You just have to find the right person, at the beginning of the distribution line. ;-) Still, the watermelon pumpkin is funny!

ASRicketts said...

Please add me to your blogroll. www.susansnewsfromjapan.blogspot.com

After finally looking at Coffeegirl Confessions and other blogs, I'm amazed at the variety of missionaries doing blogs. Somehow, I feel more connected.

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