We’re still here!! Although our original plan was to return to the U.S. in December, we decided to extend our stay a little longer. Our new plan is to move back in July. We’re all enjoying Bali so much it seemed premature to leave especially, when the kids are so happy at Green School.

We also decided not to travel home to the U.S. for the holidays this year. This was not an easy decision. We haven’t seen our families or friends for several months and celebrating Christmas without any of them felt very strange.

That being said, there was an upside to skipping some of the less than wonderful parts of the holidays such as:

Boring office parties – no one works in an office in Bali so, no parties!!

Waiting in endless lines to mail packages at the last minute – it takes weeks to send something from Bali, what’s the point?! Online shopping only!

Crazy neighbors’ gift-tin filled with balls, so steeped in rum, the smell alone may send me over the legal limit – rum costs a fortune here, no one would be caught dead pouring it on  blobs of cake!

Last minute rush to the store for the assistant teacher that I forgot to include on the gift list – all our assistant teachers are Hindu, they don’t care about Christmas!

And last but not least:

Excruciating school holiday concert — Not exactly! Get a load of Green School’s concert to kick off the holidays!!

Usually, by Christmas day I’m so tired of Christmas music I want to scream but, since this year I heard very little of it, I actually caught myself standing in the middle of Ace Hardware gleefully singing along to We Wish you a Merry Christmas. That was a first! I think by next year, I’ll be ready to jump back into the full-on American version of Christmas, despite it’s obvious pitfalls of overspending, overindulging and being desperately over-scheduled.

Although we didn’t go home for the holidays, we did take a trip to Australia where we celebrated Christmas and New Year’s. It was a new experience since it was the middle of their summer and we loved it! More on that soon!