People have asked about Christmas here. It's very different celebrating here because it's not Christmas in Ethiopia! (Because of the huge Orthodox influence here, Christmas is celebrated on January 7, but with no glitz or lights or tinsel.) So December 25 is just a regular day here. This actually has a good effect on our celebration, because there isn't the hustle and bustle and pressures and craziness of a US Christmas.
Friday night, we headed to our church's Christmas concert. It was a fabulous time of celebrating and worshiping. There was an African choir and band leading us in worship, a French-African choir singing worship songs in various African languages, and a visiting team from the US who did a drama. All in all, it was anything but traditional (ok, so I still miss the candlelight singing of "Silent Night"), but was an amazing worship service.
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| They LOVE matching! Did this on their own. |
With a bit of apprehension (ok, on my part, not on the kids' part...they were totally into it and enthusiastic!) we decided to celebrate a little differently this year. We were challenged by a devotional we read as a family, and decided to give gifts to Jesus this year instead of giving gifts to each other. Joshua knew we could do that by giving to the poor, since Jesus says, "Whatever you've done to the least of these, you've done to me." So, each day of the week leading up to Christmas, we did some online shopping through places like World Vision gift catalog. We were able to renew a family tradition from the States and fill a shoe box for Operation Christmas Child (Samaritan's Purse) online. They even let us pick what went in the box! And the kids did some amazingly thoughtful shopping, and had a blast doing in.
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| My Greatest Treasure Is Jesus |
So, what does Christmas look like without packages to open? Well, the kids got up and played a bit while we made cinnamon rolls. While we were eating, we finished off our Advent calendar
and we looked back over each story in our Jesse Tree devotional and reminded ourselves of the Story of God from the beginning to the birth of Jesus by hanging each story's ornament.
While Jerry & I prepared brunch, the kids worked together to create a way to tell us the Christmas story. They got totally into it! We had to put on the breaks when they came to the kitchen and asked if they could use some wood and the saw to create scenery!
At brunch, we had our family tradition of a baked oatmeal birthday cake plus an egg casserole. The kids also went searching for their gifts (stars with photos of the gifts they chose hidden in the house) and then brought them to Jesus' birthday party. They picked out: an Operation Christmas Child shoe box for a girl, schooling for a child in Ethiopia, mosquito nets in honor of Hanna's birth mom, a care giver medical kit for people caring for those with HIV/AIDS in honor of our little friend, and rabbits, because in Caia's words, "The kids can play with them when they're little, then they can eat them when they're big!"
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| our gifts |
Between the grand production and brunch, a large part of the day was full. Duringnap time, Joshua and Micah watched the video of their performance. Eventually, they were laughing so hard, they woke up some of the nappers! What a great sound to wake up to. :)
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| Joseph |
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| Mary visited by the angel | | | | | |
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| Joseph & Mary going to Bethlehem | | | | |
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| Caesar Agustus |
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| The "Holy Family" |
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| A very serious shepherd |
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| Narrorator/King Herod |
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| Wise man on his camel searching for Jesus |
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We all sat down to watch "A Muppet's Christmas Carol" while dinner cooked, when Jerry went to the kitchen to check on stuff and found that the oven had gone out and we were out of cooking gas. Our house help graciously found someone to carry the tank to the taxi, took the taxi to the gas shop, had another guy carry the tank from the taxi to the shop, bought a new tank, found someone to carry it to a taxi, brought the taxi back, and found someone else to carry it to the house. In less than an hour, we were back in business, and finally ended up with chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, applesauce (our first in 13 months!), and gingerbread and dream whip to finish the feast. What a truly blessed day it turned out to be!!! (And I don't think one person missed having gifts to open!)
Looks like a wonderful day was had by all! :)
ReplyDelete(I think you should post a video of the play)
ps. you mention a taxi....is vincent ok??
Stacey, Joshua is working on putting the video together, editing a few spots... :)
ReplyDeleteVincent is in the shop - the engine needs overhauled, so we are back to taxis for a few weeks.