We signed up to travel for a year, and in that not being able to spend the holidays with our families. We would miss out on the Christmas attire (anything red and green), the tree, sparkling lights, parties, ham and mash potatoes, or in my family tamales. There would be no familiarity that our own unique family traditions bring.
We stayed up the night before until midnight decorating the common room for the kids. We blew up balloons both by machine and mouth, having several pop in our hands or in our faces, creating Tim Burton looking flowers and hanging streamers of balloons to cover the walls. We carried down I don’t even know how many boxes and large garbage bags full of presents, spending time in detail to set them up under the tree only to turn around and be over whelmed by how many more needed to be set up, so I just starting tossing them under.
We got to A Greater Hope on Thursday afternoon, and as a team celebrated Christmas in our room later that night exchanging presents. Friday we jumped into the kids routine, waking up and walking to school at 7am, but it was Christmas, so they only half day and the half that they were in school was spent in songs, a naivety program, and a school wide gift exchange. That night, the Lumes and the Australian teen girls (Dinah, Cilla, and Kiara) stayed up finishing decorating both cookies and the common room for the children to come down stairs to in the morning. By the time that we got in for the morning activities it was closer to 9 am and most of the girls weren’t down yet, the boys becoming impatient as they waited for their sisters to finish “beautifying” themselves, the girls not knowing that they are already stunning. Once everyone came down, they blind folded “mommy”, Rem, as “daddy”, Kit, came and presented her with a paper flower bouquet made by the girls. The children lost it as they shared a brief kiss and instruct one of the tables the children had sat at to find only one present for their brothers and sisters at the next table. So it went until all 38 children had a single present in front of them and they began to tear the paper off to see the treasure hidden inside that was waiting to be known. Soon the staff jump in and start handing out the rest of heaps of presents to the kids and you could see and feel the excitement that only children have as they open Christmas presents. Yells of joy and happiness break out in turns as they received candy, clothes, toiletries, art supplies, sport equipment, pictures, and small toys. The rest of the day was spent hanging out and trying to memorize all 38 names, unsuccessfully. In the evening, tarps and dinner ware were set out by the pool as we all gathered and celebrated as a family Christmas dinner, bbq chicken vermecilli like dish.
As we finally get into bed and start to dose off one by one, I ask myself, “Did we really give up Christmas after all?” I don’t think so, but rather we took the opppertunity to spend the holidays with our family in Cambodia.
