{"id":7997,"date":"2025-12-28T09:40:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T14:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=7997"},"modified":"2025-12-28T09:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T14:41:07","slug":"merry-christmas-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=7997","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"221\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/727da613-618e-4982-a298-3f0af2a02ab9.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7998\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/727da613-618e-4982-a298-3f0af2a02ab9.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/727da613-618e-4982-a298-3f0af2a02ab9-300x207.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>John and I hosted a potluck for our embassy colleagues who wanted to join in &#8211; we had around 20 people including a couple of families. It was big fun! Veina and I cooked a lot the day before (purple cabbage, green bean casserole, Mac-n-cheese, stuffing, rolls, pumpkin pie) and did hams, turkeys, and cheese grits the day of \u2014 plus, of course, everyone brought something to share, so there was a lot of food!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"240\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bf12fea9-0ecf-4594-b854-5127cffa6e70.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7999\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bf12fea9-0ecf-4594-b854-5127cffa6e70.jpeg 240w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bf12fea9-0ecf-4594-b854-5127cffa6e70-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><figcaption>John was smart to take a photo of me in the kitchen since it rarely happens!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier in the week, we had the pictures downstairs hung, so the house is really starting to feel like home!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Monday night, we went to the Ambassador\u2019s residence for an embassy happy hour &#8211; fun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ecf87e25-35ad-4392-a31c-18d9e0b043e3.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ecf87e25-35ad-4392-a31c-18d9e0b043e3.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ecf87e25-35ad-4392-a31c-18d9e0b043e3-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption>At the CMR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>John got Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off, which was nice! We were pooped after Christmas, so we relaxed a lot. We watched the new \u201cKnives Out\u201d and \u201cPluribus,\u201d and we\u2019ve started the new season of \u201cA Man on the Inside.\u201d I also got John to start \u201cSomebody Somewhere\u201d with me (so I could rewatch it). I finished reading \u201cNobody\u2019s Girl\u201d and started \u201cHow to Kill a Witch,\u201d which is very interesting (about the Scottish witch trials).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_5429.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8001\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_5429.jpeg 320w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_5429-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><figcaption>John built a fire for Christmas, haha!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John and I hosted a potluck for our embassy colleagues who wanted to join in &#8211; we had around 20 people including a couple of families. It was big fun! Veina and I cooked a lot the day before (purple cabbage, green bean casserole, Mac-n-cheese, stuffing, rolls, pumpkin pie) and did hams, turkeys, and cheese [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7997"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8003,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7997\/revisions\/8003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}