Now that we've recovered from our adventures in China, Christmas is in full swing at the Barnett home.

Most of last weekend was dedicated to the gingerbread house. Given that We probably won't have the space to make one in NYC next year, we went all out this year and I think the results are pretty spectacular. For those of you who didn't see them on Facebook, here are pictures of this year's creation.

In between rolling, cutting, baking, assembling, and decorating the gingerbread mansion, we put up the tree and other decorations. Our plan to collect Christmas ornaments from the places we visit is paying off as we added Uzbekistan, Latvia, Italy, and Spain, making our tree that much more well traveled.

Heavy baking is underway and I'm celebrating my traditional lack of interest in exercising that always seems to overtake me this time of year. A great combination if you ask me. So far we have gingerbread cookies and rum balls. sugar cookies, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and caramel pop corn are on the way. Doing Christmas always makes us feel a little less far from home.

We've been so busy getting the house ready for the holidays that we haven't had time to be out having Tajik experiences, although the morning taxi ride is always an adventure. I've also noticed that Dushanbe doesn't seem to be getting into the holiday spirit like it did last year. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems to me that there were already decorations up this time last year. I hope they do it again because it was a nice change of pace.