Presents for 300 children

Christmas is also celebrated in the Dominican Republic. It is common here for Christmas decorations to be hung as early as October. I have to say, it is quite strange to see fairy lights hanging not on Christmas trees, but on palm trees instead. There are Christmas trees here as well, but they are made of plastic....

Although the school holidays officially started on Monday, fewer and fewer children were in school last week, so we sometimes only had ten children in class, which was actually quite nice.

On Monday, we had the Christmas party with the children and on Tuesday, we had the one with the teachers.

We set up a nativity scene on Friday, so there wasn't much preparation needed on Monday. However, the entire office was filled with large bags and sacks of presents because each child from first to fourth grade receives their own present. This is a tradition made possible by the school principal every year.

But before the presents were handed out, everyone gathered downstairs in the sports hall and songs were performed, sung, and of course, the nativity play was performed!

For a shared meal, each class went back to their respective classrooms, from which you could sometimes hear a song or two.

And then the moment arrived! The presents were distributed. Dominik, the school principal, and I went into each class one after the other and handed out the presents. It should be mentioned that the families of the children are often very poor and the school presents are therefore the only ones some of them receive.

For us, it was an absolutely amazing experience to witness the joy of the children.

The children don't have much, but they are happy with little. For example, we spent half an hour making soap bubbles with some of the children and they would have probably played for twice as long if we didn't have to eventually go home.