The Hensons In Cusco: The reasons we love Christmas in Cusco

Like last year, we had the pleasure of spending some time at the Josephine House around Christmas. A very common thing to do in December is to have a "chocolotada." What is this you might ask? Many church groups or even businesses in town will buy christmas toys for kids in children's homes or even in remote villages and take hot chocolate and panteton (like a fruit cake) to celebrate Christmas with the children. This past Christmas the Josephine House had the pleasure of having an insurance company named Pacifico have a chocolotada for the kids. We had a blast. The kids were so excited to open their presents. The great thing about this Christmas is that Luke went with us and then went home with us! He did have a blast while we were there.

Here are some pictures of our precious Josephine House kids receiving their gifts!

Luke playing with all the other kids toys!

My dear friend Paola and I cutting the "paneton"

Every year we have a dinner for all of the employees at the Josephine House. Last year we went out to eat at a restaurant, which was fun, but proved to be difficult with childcare for the children at the house. So, this past Christmas we decided to decorate the Josephine House with tables. Ruth, Meghan and I made Christmas dinner and we ate at the house. It was so much fun. Prior to the dinner everyone drew names and then we got gifts for the person that we drew. Needless to say, I think that I got the most interesting gift (see below).

Beautiful! This is how our friends here carry their babies!

The nursing Noah got to attend all the Christmas events

Christmas table decorations...I was very proud of them!

My Christmas gift....the nursing quechua doll! That would be appropriate for me this year!

All the sweet ladies who care for the precious children at the Josephine House. We are so thankful for them!

One thing that is not uncommon is to have many Christmas visitors. These were some of our favorite visitors. Gladis, the nurse who works for Nathan, and her family came to visit us in the evening. They are from the jungle. We are always blessed by their gifts of many bananas, pineapples, sugar cane, green eggs, and even fresh hens to eat! Gladis gave us a picture with preserved butterflies, which now hangs in our living room. Luke loves to look at them.

Noah with some of his favorite visitors. They were teaching him quechua!

Luke and Gladis looking at the butterfly picture

For Nathan and I, the sweetest thing this past Christmas was having both of our boys in our home, safe and healthy. As many of you know, the year 2012 was a year mixed with hardship in waiting and great blessing. After waiting 9 long months, we welcomed Luke into our family and then in September, after a bit of a scare with Noah not growing well in-utero in the altitude, we welcomed him as well. So what a Christmas to celebrate these two sweet smiles under the tree. Nathan and I had all that we could have ever asked for!