Christmas comes to Xela

Just down the hill from the our temple is this structure called 'The Minerva Temple'. It was built in 1900 under the direction of the new leader of the country, President Manual Estrada Cabrera, who was infatuated with the Roman Goddess Minerva and had several Minerva temples built throughout the country.    

That is not a school bus there, it is public transportation with the name of the school district it originally served in just painted out. Did you ever wonder what happened to worn out school buses? 

 When this huge tree is lit up at night, we can see it from our annex building.  This tree is just a huge frame put together in pieces.  But pretty magnificent, wouldn't you agree?

 This is a beautiful mosiac mural is on a wall across from the Minerva temple.  Notice our volcano, Santa Maria shows up on it too.













We came across a little family in the park there near Minerva temple just enjoying a lovely shopping day.  I asked if I could take a picture of this darling little girl all dressed up and she consented but grabbed her brother to join her.

But you must see her hair do from the back. 

We had to do something to dress up our apartment so this is our greeting on our front door.

Our Christmas tree runs no competition in size with the one by the Minerva Temple but it fits in our little apartment just fine.  Don't you love the Guatemalan dolls all around it?  Dolls just go with Christmas, I think.  These will eventually go to our granddaughters but for now we are enjoying them around our tree.

And of course, Dad had to find a way to put up some lights so we wound some through a cheap Chinese import garland.  Butt unfortunately, the Duck Tape here is not as strong as it is at home and the garland and lights came down.  We enjoyed it while it lasted though.

And here is our Christmas Tablecloth that I found on one venture out.  Really brightens up our apartment. 

 I have several more Christmas posts to add but I will save them for another day.  

Hope you are enjoying all your Christmas preparations and not losing track of what Christmas is really all about.  Celebrating a very special birthday, that of the baby Jesus Christ.