We were wished Merry Christmas & Happy New Year by many friends and neighbors, most adherents of the majority religion. One such neighbor even brought over three large containers of cookies.  |
| cookie decorating with friends |
Christmas eve we invited over one of our tutors and her two sisters for lunch and cookie decorating. They really got into it, creating little works of art.
Ever since our wedding, John and I (Erin) continue to discuss how to celebrate Christmas. Now, more than ever before, we are struggling with how to teach our children the true reason we celebrate and also be a light to those we now live among. If our decorations or our actions communicate something other than why we are celebrating Christmas, should we avoid those traditions all together? This is our first Christmas overseas and I (Erin) was not ready to celebrate without some traditional decorations. A quote from an article I recently read clearly expresses my feelings this year,
"Honestly, I am not
sure what the celebration...should
look like here. We are caught between our customs from home and the culture of
the country in which we live."
With all that to say, we had a tree with lights, stockings, and red & green around the house. As we continue to adapt I'm not sure what will return in the following years and what may not.
Christmas morning we unpacked stockings which I filled with candy and ornaments reflecting times of provision in our life. We told the boys stories about each ornament and ate cinnamon rolls.
After breakfast we decorated a gingerbread house. I wanted to do this a few weeks before Christmas, but the ants and humidity changed my mind. After lunch the boys were allowed to eat the house, which they devoured rather quickly.
We closed our celebrations on Christmas with singing Happy Birthday and eating birthday cake. The boys each took one bite, then were done. I think they were sugared-out.
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| Christmas 2012 |
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| Christmas 2011, oh how they've changed |
New years eve we spent at our tutor's house, with whom we decorated cookies earlier, and her family. We ate dinner together and conversed, while the boys played and watched fireworks going off in the street from a second floor balcony. I felt like I was living in a magazine article about unattended kids with fireworks. There were at least a dozen kids on the street below. For much of the time they stood there just looking at us or pointing at the white people who came to visit. After it became dark the fireworks began. Kids were lighting the fireworks themselves, occasionally throwing them at each other, and often picking them up rather quickly if they didn't go off. Thank goodness no one was injured, but I was just waiting for something to happen. We returned home a couple hours before midnight and all slept through the new year, with the exception of hearing many very loud fireworks for quite some time at midnight.
