Christmas Joy

Every year I have spent the holidays overseas... I suppose it's about 8 of them now... I have lived in tension. Missing family, but glad to be away from the commercialism of the US; remembering family traditions but creating our own which are quite different from anything I grew up with; lighting off self-imposed expectations of how 'pretty' or 'fancy' it feels things should be, and desiring to fill our moments celebrating Jesus in ways the girls will remember and carry on. This year was no different. So here's what we did.

First, an outreach at the girls' school. It was very simple-- a Christmas cookie in a baggie with the Christmas story attached. But these kids have never seen a homemade cookie...ovens are for bakeries, not used by your average home. So they are easily impressed! Of course, the cookie is not the point.
































We enjoyed a simple Christmas Eve, with our friend Glo. Unfortunately her sister got sick and couldn't come. Somehow, our Christmas Eve menu has become Tortellini soup along with my friend Tina's herb bread recipe.














Then we lit the candles in our advent wreath and Glo played the piano for all our carols.



















Now comes the girls' favorite part of Christmas Eve. This year, each week leading up to Christmas, the girls had a wrapped Christmas story under the tree. It enjoyed picking them out as much as sharing them with the girls. And now we have a basket full of fun stories for Christmas season! These were my favorites:

Room for Little One
The Legend of the Poinsettia
The Shepherd Girl
An Orange for Frankie














Of course, what made Christmas Eve more fun than the other weeks was the hot chocolate and Christmas cookies by the tree. That only happened once :)

Now, here we are Christmas morning. I wouldn't have included this pic, (sorry Jim, I couldn't really cut you out), but the girls smiles were so cheery that I had to put it in. There is a reason they we compare happiness to "a kid on Christmas morning."




















One of my Christmas morning delights was watching Ellie's sheer joy over her taking care of her dolly.

















































We spent Christmas afternoon with our friends... We had fun, ate good food, worshiped together, and I laughed harder than I have in a long time. It was a good day.















Isn't that a fine bunch of ladies?