Christmas in North Africa

Wow! What a surprise we found last night. We had heard that there were some much coveted Christmas decorations at our local "Wal-Mart." And we heard right! There were about three or four shelves of goodies that were relatively cheap. We bought this wreath for about a few dollars. We also bought the tallest Christmas tree they had: 210 cm. Don't ask me how tall that is. I haven't learned how to convert yet. (And no snide remarks about that either!) The funniest part was watching all the women in their head scarfs loading up their shopping carts with decorations. Interesting... At first we were a little worried about the tree. It resembled Charlie Brown's more than a nice, plump American retail store tree.
But, it began to fluff out quite nicely in time.
Still unsure about these lights, though. For the life of me I can't figure out why you would need MORE plain wire than you actually have lights. My roommate suggested for decorating houses. But let me tell you, house decorations really aren't in high demand over here!
Bethany and me posing with our two cute stuffed animals we bought as we attempt to place the lights where you can't actually see the wires. (A feat in itself!) Oh the good memories it brought back from my childhood of my Dad hanging the lights on the tree. No wonder they have pre-lit now.
Sure, they sell ornaments. But not hooks. It's all about being resourceful in this land with no Christmas. So, we just decided to use all the small colored paperclips in our classrooms.
And then the ribbon that tied the ornament boxes together was cut down to make tiny bows for the tree.
When it was all said and done, it didn't look so bad. It's not much, but it is enough to get us in the Christmas mood and ease our homesickness just a little!