Secret Santa

The other day I was persuaded by Anne, my fellow dance master, that it would be fun to dye some of our hair with henna. This was the first time I was dying my hair with anything, so I was a bit nervous, but we were in the trustworthy hands of Venilla (one of the housemothers), and i knew that it wouldn't be permanent, so I thought why not.... lets do this thing! So we trucked over to Venilla's house one night and got our hair all slathered with henna. While were doing this some of Venilla's boys came in and started talking with. We were all talking about Christmas, and it turns out here in India they have their own version of Secret Santa known as Christma Chris or something like that. We decided that we would do a secret santa with each other for the next night and we would all make gifts for one another.

So the next night we all gathered back in Venilla's room, and put our gifts on her bed. It was so fun to swap gifts, and it worked out perfectly because Venilla, Anne, Kenady and I all drew the boys names and the boys all drew ours. When we showed up the next night, they were still working on our presents so we had to wait in the next room and they were very insistent that we not look.

Nagaraj drew my name, and he made me an awesome Christmas card with some pretty sweet drawings inside. The picture was a pig holding an apple. Sadly, this poor pig had missed his but, but fortunately he had his apple. Not sure what inspired the picture, but it was still super cute.
I drew Anbarasu, and I made this star from him. He loved it so much, that he requested I come back the next night and teach him how to make it. Well, all the other boys wanted to learn too, and now its become quite a thing among Venilla's boys. I'm so glad my star was such a big hit.
I also made Anbarasu a picture of Smile Island. If you don't know what that is, its only the coolest picture ever.... :)
Here's the whole group with our secret santa gifts.

Oh and by the way, the henna turned out just fine. On my hair the henna looks like a copper color, and blends nicely with the rest of my hair. I think it should still be showing when I get back to the states, so ask me and I'll show you :)