True to form, Guantanamo Bay gave us warm temperatures in the 80's to grace our Christmas Day celebrations and while I do enjoy cold weather and a crackling fire, I must admit that I'm enjoying the weather here as well.
We hosted a brunch at our house and enjoyed a meal of belgian waffles, omelets, oven-roasted potatoes, sausage, fresh fruit, carnitas, carne asada, San Diego burritos, juice, coffee and a Jamaican drink called Sorrel.
Just like our Thanksgiving meal, our Christmas meal found us blessed with many wonderful and interesting people. When we first arrived here, we made friends with a teenage Jamaican boy. He was here visiting his dad, who works here on the base. Now his entire family was able to make the trip here to be together as a family for Christmas. Also joining us was a man named Manny. His nickname is "Balancing Manny" and he has quite a unique talent for balancing objects on his head. In fact, he has been on the Ellen DeGeneres show a number of times. Another claim to fame for him is that he ran the L.A. Marathon with a watermelon on his head the entire time. He is in the reserves and was called up for duty here as a chef. Manny has cooked for many Hollywood stars for years and today we were blessed with some of his cooking. He made the carnitas, carne asada, San Diego burritos and several different salsas to go with it.
Here is a link to check him out: http://www.ellentv.com/2009/07/22/mannys-balancing-acts/
We ourselves have seen him balance and jog with a 5 gallon water cooler and a 6 ft. folding table on his head.
Our final guests were the George family. They arrived on the island shortly after we did and we became instant friends. We go to church with them and they have two teenagers who are friends with our teenagers so we are with them quite a bit.
We truly had a wonderful day and while we certainly miss family and friends, God has seen fit to add new people to our lives to enjoy and for that we are grateful.
Merry Christmas to everyone from Guantanamo Bay!
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