Although we missed our families dearly this Christmas considering that it was our second year away from home, my younger sister, Kristi Vo, was here and we were surrounded by good friends. This time, we were the hosts for a potluck Christmas lunch on our terrace in the hot Saigon afternoon. We ordered a turkey and gravy and ham from Black Cat. When we called to confirm that our order was on its way, we found out that the driver had a small accident and our turkey plummeted to the ground! No worries, though. The manager of Black Cat said that they were making a lot of turkeys that day and it was only an hour late!

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However, cooking food other than Vietnamese food is always a challenge. Randy made fried rice, which wasn’t a problem. Kristi made bruscetta, which she learned from living in Italy for a month. And I made green bean casserole again and sweet potato yams with brown sugar. But, they don’t have brown sugar here, they have yellow sugar and the sweet potatoes are yellow not orange. So I had to improvise yet again. It was definitely sweet and everyone liked it, I think, but it was not like my mom’s.

Nevertheless, it was definitely like Christmas back home. We ate all day, had visitors all day and had a good nap. We even had friends from Korea come to our house for a true Christmas dinner. Thanks for visiting, Avril! Lastly, we took a night bus to Da Lat with a friend who is from there. That story is coming soon…