First Annual Team Belgrade Flea Market Christmas

Team Belgrade consists of two wonderful families, three kids each...and me. Most of you may be wondering what exactly my Christmas (Protestant not Orthodox) looked like. I actually spent Christmas Eve and morning with the Israels. After opening presents with them I went home and skyped with my family. Bam, Christmas in two time zones. Christmas Day was an adventure I'll recount in the next post. This one is dedicated to our Team Extravaganza.

Christmas Eve we all met at the flea market. We've already discussed how much I love the flea market! We had drawn names at dinner the night before and we were tasked with getting our person a gift. The catch was that the gift had to be 500 dinar or less. Which is about 7 dollars. I had selected Kyle, the youngest Israel child and Connor (my shopping buddy) had picked his mom. So off we went, it was surprisingly difficult. There was just too much to choose from. Most of it was over my limit as well. Finally we found the perfect gifts and met back up with the group. There was a lot of speculation and attempts to cheat and see what was in everyone's bags. We all headed home to wrap gifts and then reconvened at the Steven's household. After some goading from the children we sat down to exchange gifts. This is what transpired:

The gifts. If only you could hear the excitement.

Kyleigh had my name. I got a sled (which will really come in handy now), kinder eggs (my favorite!) and two pairs of socks. It should be known that I almost never wear matching socks. I don't tend to match them and wear whatever two I pick up first. Michaela, the youngest Stevens girl, does not appreciate this. SO Kyleigh safety pinned the socks into mismatched pairs before she wrapped them. Such a super girl right there.

I got Kyle this ridiculous pillow. At first he didn't like it, then he saw how everybody else thought it was wonderful and he did a quick 180. He told me he was going to sleep on it that night. It has a cute Bear and Rabbit playing soccer (which Kyle loves, the soccer...no idea about the animals). The cyrillic writing is nonsense. We think its a chinese attempt at cyrillic.

Connor got that nifty tie that he's wearing and he got his mom that denim printed apron with a bear smelling flowers. Kyleigh (racing by) got that awesome animal print vest.

That is how Connor normally looks.

There was a lot of confusion and explaining of why we chose gifts.

Everyone was also touched by the magic pillow in some way.

Oh yea. We also talked about the meaning of Christmas. Because we love Jesus more than silly flea market presents.

I'm thinking I might have to have a flea market scavenger hunt for my birthday. People will have to find and take photos of toilets, tires, cell phone cases, pirated movies, nikes, Hungarian candy, Serbian flag underwear, kitchen utensils, bed sheets, rabbits, etc. I'm going to keep developing this thought in my brain.