The theme goes on for kilometers

Malagaya Pasko

This little hanging star is made entirely of straws

Even the hanging ribbon like things are made of a plastic straws.

Here is a close up

This is an amazing Christmas Tree

I was playing around with my Picasa 3 and tried putting some words on this picture that we took. We stopped to look at this tree. It is another example of how creative these Filipino people are. This tree is made completely of recycled garbage. The pink circles are old tricycle tires. The green flower in the center of the pink tire is two plastic soda pop bottles with their noses wired together then slit to the nose leaving five petals to form a star like effect. In order to do this the bottoms of the pop bottle had to be cut off. The bottom of the pop bottle formed the center of the red flowers sprayed yellow of course. The red flowers were formed like the stars using a smaller bottle and slit and shaped differently. The gold star on top is another example of the green stars, but painted gold. It is all wired together, using a tire for a Christmas tree stand. It has lots of lights on it too. It took a lot of work and not much money.

It looked like a Toyota used car lot at the mission home for Thanksgiving Dinner

We found Potato Buds for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Sitting in a jeepney, sipping soda thru a straw from a bag.

This is how most people buy a soda drink here. You have to hold on tight to the bag, but it works. This, and my other favorite: a straw paper plate holder with a paper plate on it and then a plastic bag over the whole thing. You then dish up your food on to the bag covered plate and when you are done you throw away the plastic bag with the food scraps and save the paper plate and straw plate holder. If you don't have paper plates, you us banana leaves under the bag. Very innovative!

A Christmas Tree in a plaza

Someone took some branches and sprayed them white and silver and layered them on this huge artificial tree. I liked the way it looked before they put the gifts under the tree. I thought it was a cleaver way to make a white tree.

Isn't this tree beautiful?

It is in front of a very small meeting house in Cuenca. The branch had 30 members present today and they were happy about that. They even had a baptizm yesterday. It was windy and rainy all day today but, this tree brightened things up.