When I gave away most of our Christmas decorations in favor of a “packing light” approach to international travel I didn’t have any idea that they would travel with us through four different countries and be set up in three different countries after leaving our passport state. Very few of the items survived the many transitions but I was surprised and blessed to see how, despite so many locational holiday changes so many of our advent blessings and traditions have remained the same.
I think this is how it ought to be, Advent is a season marked in deepest gratitude for the gift of our Savior and the rhythms of our family are so special to us as they prepare our hearts for the season- this year I’ve been blessed to see how these remembrances aren’t reliant on cookie cutters, or ornaments, or even xmas wrapping paper but hearts that are prepared to receive and remember the gift we’ve been given.
We “decorated” for the holidays with my parents on November 28th, which was also when we celebrated Thanksgiving (due to scheduled protests that had us housebound). It was so special because since we were all “housebound” it was a great day to cook and decorate. I must confess to feeling a bit sad. The carefully selected meaningful tree ornaments, the Christmas lights, the window clings, and of course tree were all in a box in South Sudan. We had a few things we’d gotten out but as I looked at our scraggly houseplant I wondered how it would turn out. The results were amazing. We had such fun creating paper ornaments, and popcorn chains. An amazing care package came with an ornament making kit and snowflake window clings, and we had Christmas music playing. The memories were built in the creation as much as the decorating and we had such such fun.
This entire post is one to remember all the good things in the holidays this year – much different then a holiday in our passport country, or marked by denied visas, or by an evacuation though each is beautiful in its right. I am learning that holidays are marked by people, and tradition, and remembrance of why we celebrate more then events. I am praying wherever this finds you that the true reason we celebrate, the gift given to us through Jesus you will know with the joy we do as we remember each year- wherever you may find us.
A special treat this year was making gingerbread houses. We’ve done sugar cookie decorating the last two years but all our cookie cutters were in South Sudan so we found this cute idea to make gingerbread houses using paper to trace around. We loved it! This is bumping the sugar cookie tradition for sure!
We went to a fun holiday party (a rarity here as it is not widely celebrated) and had such fun!
We also celebrated someone turning seven! Poor little dear was soo soo sick! But she put on a smile anyway!
One of my favorite memories of the holiday will be that I was able to help my dear friend Bev as she hosted for many so no one would spend Christmas alone. We spent two days before Christmas baking away together and I loved it! One day I got sick (our whole family did) but she let me help anyway as I gave chopping instructions for dishes while sitting down – and fed me turkey soup 🙂
Not pictured at all was Christmas Eve where our dear friends L,S and her sister C came over to join us. We loved it! I was sick and spent most of the time in my room but knowing they were there warmed my heart to no end and my husband did a great job hosting and sharing our traditional nacho Christmas eve dinner.
Christmas day I woke up realizing that I had forgotten to take the Christmas cinnamon rolls out of the freezer (another tradition for us) so we took advantage of living here and ordered in doughnuts – not a bad substitute for my sick induced forgetfulness.
We enjoyed a lovely service with friends at our church (by we I mean the girls and I as the boys were under the weather at this point) and then headed over to enjoy the food we’d prepared over the week with others. There were over 30 in attendance. It was a sweet time with dear friends.
