Christmas in la casa de la familia Glick

Christmas 2012 in the Glick household was, as is each year, unique.

This year we had two newcomers to the Glick chaos. 

Luis and David Canil Gonzalez. Luis is 15 and David 13. Luis is the boy we are working on receiving custody of.

We are still working and waiting on the system but we did receive permission to have Luis for a few days here with us.

He was able to take part in the preparations and event Nochebuena, and then spend Christmas day with us.

Luis & Maria open their Christmas stockings

His younger brother wanted to spend Christmas with him so we brought him home for the night also.

This was their first experience at North American Christmas!

David seeing what is in there

It was fun watching them open their stockings and their gifts.

Luis is not certain about this worm that lights up when hit!

Some of it they couldn't quite figure out, but they would laugh with us and really enjoyed all of it.

Sandi with a one legged Santa! (it had two legs when she opened it - oooooops)

 It was really fun for Sandi and I to watch. Our Christmas' have seemed to get better as we have less, this year we only had a couple of simple gifts for each, and it was so fun to be more about us together, and less about the presents.

Luis was pretty happy to receive a jersey for his favorite team!

 We did have a jersey for Luis of his favorite team, the Cremas! and I might add champions this year!

Maria showing off her pictures of herself!

 Maria had a GREAT time, she loves the boys and is really wanting us to complete the process so her 'little brother' can come home to stay!

As always, the biggest mess award goes to Maria!

 This pic makes it look like Maria was spoiled again this year, but in reality, everyone had thrown their wrapping paper and boxes at Maria!

I, of course, received the best of the day - a Tigger bottle of shampoo!

 I had to leave my extensive Tigger collection behind when we moved to Guatemala, but somehow, have been receiving more here. This was a gift from Erika.

Luis relaxing after it all settled down

 Late in the afternoon we had to return Luis to the facility where he lives now, it is like a camp about 45 minutes away outside the city. Please keep praying we can complete the process by mid January so we can get him started in school on time.

It was a great Christmas, the only downside was not being with our other three children.

That is hard. It has been 6 years since we spent a Christmas with our son Jacob, 4 years since we spent a Christmas with Kimberly, and one year since we spent a Christmas with Felicita.

We are hoping one year soon (maybe 2013?) to have all of our kids here to share in Nochebuena and spend Christmas together!