Christmas!

December 26, 2010

Merry Christmas! As far as Christmas goes, this definitely was one for the books.  The night before we had a devotional time and stayed up late watching a movie with the kids. I went to bed at one. Then we got up super early to fill stockings, which was such a hoot.   We had brought chocolate for all the kids at the kids home we are helping with.  And they had stockings from last Christmas, so it even seemed legitimately Christmas-y.  We went back to bed after that, because 5am is a little early for us.  But we went to Catholic mass with Janka at a more reasonable hour.  Then off for breakfast, and back to our “hotel” for some team Christmas time.  It was beautiful, hot and sunny. So we thought we might work on our tans.  Instead we ended up having a water fight in our front yard.  The neighbours probably thought we were nuts, but we really enjoyed ourselves.  We could just let loose and really enjoy the fact that we were in Indonesia and it was hot!  It isn’t your normal Christmas activity, but it put us into more of the Christmas spirit for sure.  Then in the evening we participated in my favourite Christmas activity: dressing up and making the nativity. We had all our actors choose their parts from a hat, and it turned out perfectly.  The shepherds were very convincing, although their sheep were a bit rebellious. The wise men brought cereal, a trophy and a big water jug. And Mary was a guy dressed up in blue tie die. I actually had never seen so much tie die in a nativity before! But it was great. After they had finished, the props became musical instruments as they started singing. It was beautiful. The little girls were dancing, the percussion was intricate, and the singing heartfelt.  It was a beautiful moment, better than we could have planned. And everyone was still in costumes, so the shepherds were banging in one corner and a wise man was blowing through a hollow broom stick. Very cool. And that is what made it Christmas for me.