Part of our ministry here in Gua Musang was hosting a Christmas Eve dinner and doing a nativity for a group of 100+ kids at the church on Christmas morning. We’ve spent a good bit of the month making endless amounts of decorations, planning props, costumes, script, dinner menu, games, songs, etc. All the while Uncle has new ideas for the entertainment everyday…at one point he wanted us to do a cowboy/Indian skit. He was especially keen on this idea when he found out I am part Cherokee – he envisioned introducing me and having me do a war dance or something. No joke, real life. This didn’t happen, mainly because that’s not very Christmas-y and because I have no idea how to do a war dance. Luckily he settled with asking me tons of questions about “my people.” So funny.
One of the things I was most looking forward to this Christmas was not being around the consumerism and crazy, stressful schedule of the whole thing we have made it. However, the business and stress were still present, bearing down on us to perform and get this event planned and done. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good Christmas shindig and seeing people and even cooking, but I don’t think Jesus came to be a once a year event where we focus on décor, food, presents, performing to expectations, etc instead of taking that time to refocus our hearts on Him. We made all of these snowflakes that we hung from the ceiling, long paper chains, candy canes, snow men, put lights and ribbon up…I wonder if people walked into the church and thought that’s what Christmas was about, fun decorations. A lot of Christians here don’t celebrate Christmas. Pastor Ezekiel brought up a good point that I had never thought of; he read the story of Jesus’ birth and talked about traditions – Christmas, or at least our version of it, is nowhere to be found in the Bible. There are no Christmas trees, no huge meals, no stressful planning, the whole Jewish community wasn’t running around frantically to buy everyone gifts they didn’t need, there were no candy canes, snowmen, etc. Instead there is one couple, led by the Spirit of God, who He uses to bring His own son into the world. Christmas is about God stepping off His throne, taking off His glory, and humbling Himself to come down to earth in the form of a helpless infant to usher in the greatest plan of redemption ever conceived. It’s about loving the people around us, enjoying each other’s presence, and just being together. I love loving others through giving them gifts, but the gifts should never be the main focus. The focus is on the love behind the giving. My favorite part of Christmas this year was when all the events were over and we came home and gave each other our homemade gifts and watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” together. I don’t like all of the hoopla we make this season, I just want to rest in the grace of God and enjoy the people with me.
There were a lot of hilarious moments from the Christmas events though…my favorite was when we were asked to do an impromptu Christmas concert on Christmas Eve and they asked us to sing American folk songs, so we ended up singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and “Home on the Range” and taught the electric slide to the tune of “Wagon Wheel.” I think I can safely say, that no one else on the planet celebrated with that mixture of songs. Our friend Guna doing “O-ley-ley” with us what pretty epic too. And our ghetto nativity performance made out of limited materials was hilarious…the best was Jacquie’s hair wrapped around her face to create a bearded shepherd.
