Normally, Christmas is characterized by family gatherings, an abundance of sweet treats, festive songs and activities, and presents. Being on The World Race and particularly living in a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas at all, leaves me to fight for what’s most important to me about the season. And, particularly reflect more on the person of Jesus.
Family– This word has a new meaning to me. My immediate family now consists of 2 Brothers and 3 Sisters. Each with different backgrounds, interests, and personalities. But our Father has uniquely knit us all together for this season of our lives and we’ve grown to truly love each other. We hang out, talk, bicker, sit in silence, love on each other, and constantly find things in common. My extended U family consists of about 30-something other Brothers and Sisters whom our Father also placed in each other’s lives for such a time as this.
For this Christmas, some of our extended family got to come to OUR home to celebrate! We anxiously awaited their arrival as we deep cleaned our little apartment, decorated, prepared food, and planned activities. We were SO excited when they all arrived! Now we’ve got a full house of 15 people (2 teams + our 2 squad leaders) for the holidays.
Sweet Treats– Okay, it doesn’t matter where you are, you gotta have the goodies at Christmas. Everyone was really great in helping out, gathering family recipes, buying ingredients, and altering the recipes to fit our Asian lifestyle. We’ve all enjoyed some DELICIOUS all-homemade familiar foods such as Puppy Chow/White Trash, Buckeyes, green bean casserole, snicker doodle/sugar cookies with frosting, pancakes with syrup, and pumpkin cookies. I’m pretty sure we’ve all indulged ourselves into a sugar coma with a few of these. But it’s nice to enjoy these things now because they truly are a treat.
Festive Activities– Christmas Eve we held a Christmas program for children in the community. This was our main opportunity to share Jesus openly and freely. We played “festive” games (changing “Duck Duck Goose into Santa Santa Reindeer), sang holiday songs, put on a skit of the birth of Jesus out of Luke 2, shared some testimonies, and I got to share the gospel and the real reason for why we celebrate Christmas. It was an awesome time and at the end we handed out little gifts to the children.
Later that day, our whole U family played Dirty Santa/White Elephant which was very interesting to see what gifts were to be had; many of which we found around our homes for free and just wrapped up in whatever we had. Then we had a huge dinner together including a ginormous pot of chicken curry and noodles that a local pastor provided for us!
After laughing our heads off through a game of Quelf and watching consecutive Christmas movies, we rang in Christmas Day with a candlelight worship service at 11:30pm in our living room. We sang every beautiful, meaningful, and silly Christmas song we could think of. We prayed, read the Bible, and ended with Silent Night with our candles all light. It was so beautiful and definitely a precious way of celebrating this Christmas! Not to mention, we had many laughs along the way.
Presents– I don’t know about you, but at home I’m used to spending an insane amount on gifts for everyone and receiving many in return. This year was definitely different in that presents were not a main focus (or stress!). What our family did was draw names of people on our teams and do a Secret Santa.
I must say, though I only received a few little gifts this year, the ones I received meant more to me than anything else. It meant a lot knowing that my Sister knows me so well and took effort to bless me and make me feel loved this Christmas. I couldn’t have been happier. It was an awesome time having all 15 people sit around our little living room in front of the tree, opening one gift at a time from their person, and seeing the joy that flooded each of their faces.
This has been my second Christmas away from home now. I know my family back home is thinking of and missing me about now and praying that I’m not lonely and having an awesome day. And I will say for the record that is was awesome. (So thanks for the love and prayers, fam!)
This Christmas was not bad or lonely or sad in any way. It was just different. A good different. Different culture, different family, incorporating different traditions, and having a different mindset.
Family and Faith was my priority this year. Having the time and space to constantly remember Jesus and celebrating the birth of our Everlasting Lord has been neat while omitting the distractions of excess and stress.
This has been my merry little Christmas. I hope you ALL had a great one back home and I can’t wait to hear all about them!
