Thank you!! And Merry Christmas!

It was a supremely Christmassy time we had today, and I'd like to thank everybody for making our graduation-cum-celebration-cum-potluck a success. Apologies, though, to Henry, Qiao Xia, Amar, and anyone else who didn't get their certificates--I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I'll try to make it up in the following week. Don't worry--your benchmarks are as good as gold, and you're making good progress.

Thanks to our class choir and our pair of willing conductors, Ping and Sandy! Without you we might've ended up singing a different tune to a different beat. Mehrnoosh's discourse on Yalda Night and recitation from Persian poet Hafez really knocked it out of the stadium. Unfortunately, Nasrin couldn't join us, having to rush back to her fevered daughter after dropping off her dish for the potluck. And what a potluck, eh? Also, kudos to those of you who stayed to clean up, both upstairs and downstairs.

And thanks so much for the lovely surprise of cards and gifts and the kindest thoughts and wishes:

Thanks, Ping, Yan, Judy, Eva, Anny, Jessie, Huayu, Ling, Victor, Jane, Sheppard, Mizuho, and Bernice! Hope you had as good a time this year as I did, both in class and on our field trips!

Wow, what a card! My colleagues were pretty much blown away!

Ling and Mizuho put their creative juices together and look what we got!!

And thank you so much, Parastoo, Nelly, Alice, Hamid, Quinn, Sandra, Qiaoxia, Henry, Mary, and Fariba! It was such a joy having you guys each day of the week!

But that's not all ...

  

The cards alone would've been more than necessary, yet there was more--a generous gift card and a beautiful hamper of goodies guaranteed to spoil this teacher over the holidays.

Thanks so much once again, and thank God, above all, who first gave His Son to be the sacrifice to save us. What a gift! Because of that first Christmas some 2,011 years ago, we're truly able to say with joy, "Merry Christmas!"