Christmas in Cambodia!
I knew that December would be the hardest month for me. With Christmas and my birthday I knew homesickness would be evident. But what I didn’t know was that this Christmas was going to be such a blessing.
We actually celebrated Christmas twice:
The first was on Sunday December 16th. This is when the church that we lived behind and also where our contact was the pastor at celebrated. We had a awesome Christmas service which consisted of traditional Khmer dances with coconuts, Christmas skits, preaching, games, gift giving and then dinner. It was a busy day but incredibly awesome. Our team did the story of Jesus’ birth as a skit. It was hit because I had a 6-year-old baby Jesus 😉 But the sight of giving the kids and adults gift when they didn’t expect it was awesome. Gifts that we in the US would write off. Gifts of simple clothing and toothpaste and soap. But to them they loved it.
Our traditional Christmas on December 25th was spent very different than I would regularly spend it. In the US I would get up early for presents and then have a full day of eating and visiting with family. In Cambodia it was a day of serving the community around us.
Around 10am on Christmas morning we made a pancake feast for the community. It was so fun because they had never had pancakes. They loved it though.
But the fun part was ballroom dancing in the kitchen which Geena lead, and playing card in the living room which Emily lead.
It was just about spending time with the precious people that were in our lives daily. After pancakes most of the kids had to go to school so some of the young people and a few kids came to watch Elf. It was so much fun, even thought they had no clue what was being said they laughed at the actions. After the movie we played a couple more rounds of cards, which they taught us a game and we have since played it a lot! We had a couple free hours till our night surprise so we decided to go to the market and walk around and get some food. So we spent a couple hours there and then came back.
At 7:30 we planned a big surprise and it started with a bonfire made out of burning coconuts. It was awesome because in the US on Christmas night I would be at my mommoms house and we have the tradition of reading the birth of Jesus and then having a birthday cake and singing happy birthday to Jesus. So on this night surprise I got to bring some of my famillies traditions to Cambodia. We read the story of the birth of Jesus and then they gave us a cake in which we then got all the kids and adults to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
We ended the night with some Christmas carols and passing out gifts.
It was such an awesome night.
I knew that December would be the hardest month for me. With Christmas and my birthday I knew homesickness would be evident. But what I didn’t know was that this Christmas was going to be such a blessing.
We actually celebrated Christmas twice:
The first was on Sunday December 16th. This is when the church that we lived behind and also where our contact was the pastor at celebrated. We had a awesome Christmas service which consisted of traditional Khmer dances with coconuts, Christmas skits, preaching, games, gift giving and then dinner. It was a busy day but incredibly awesome. Our team did the story of Jesus’ birth as a skit. It was hit because I had a 6-year-old baby Jesus 😉 But the sight of giving the kids and adults gift when they didn’t expect it was awesome. Gifts that we in the US would write off. Gifts of simple clothing and toothpaste and soap. But to them they loved it.
Our traditional Christmas on December 25th was spent very different than I would regularly spend it. In the US I would get up early for presents and then have a full day of eating and visiting with family. In Cambodia it was a day of serving the community around us.
Around 10am on Christmas morning we made a pancake feast for the community. It was so fun because they had never had pancakes. They loved it though.
But the fun part was ballroom dancing in the kitchen which Geena lead, and playing card in the living room which Emily lead.
It was just about spending time with the precious people that were in our lives daily. After pancakes most of the kids had to go to school so some of the young people and a few kids came to watch Elf. It was so much fun, even thought they had no clue what was being said they laughed at the actions. After the movie we played a couple more rounds of cards, which they taught us a game and we have since played it a lot! We had a couple free hours till our night surprise so we decided to go to the market and walk around and get some food. So we spent a couple hours there and then came back.
At 7:30 we planned a big surprise and it started with a bonfire made out of burning coconuts. It was awesome because in the US on Christmas night I would be at my mommoms house and we have the tradition of reading the birth of Jesus and then having a birthday cake and singing happy birthday to Jesus. So on this night surprise I got to bring some of my famillies traditions to Cambodia. We read the story of the birth of Jesus and then they gave us a cake in which we then got all the kids and adults to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.
We ended the night with some Christmas carols and passing out gifts.
It was such an awesome night.
I had dreaded Christmas for a while since it is my favorite holiday. But seriously I was so blessed on this day. Seeing the faces on the kids, and seeing the adults getting into the Christmas carols just made it so much more special.
If you’re reading this and thinking about going on the race but not sure about missing the holidays, I was right there with you. But after experiencing this Christmas it was so worth missing out on the family traditions. The faces and the smiles and the hugs at the end of this Christmas will always be with me.
I hope you guys had a blessed Christmas. And Happy New Year!
