Christmas

So, I'm a little slow on the uptake this year. It's December 9th and today I just realized that Christmas is coming. Doesn't matter that I started reading an Advent devotional on the first Sunday of Advent. It still didn't register.

We have plans for Christmas (the first in our time here in Mozambique). We are going with 6 other people from our Bible Study to a house in South Africa on a nature reserve just outside Kruger Park. It should be fun. It still didn't register for me that Christmas is coming.

Joel's on the ball. In fact at this moment, he's out shopping for me. I have no clue what to give him. Here it seems rather pointless to give a gift because it is just accumulating more stuff that when we decide to leave, we'll have to make decisions, do we take it with us in our suit case or leave it? Plus, neither of us needs anything. The only thing I would really like, he can't give me...a time to go out with any number of my friends who live in the States for coffee or for lunch. That can't be given. As for him, I can't give him tickets to some event becuase there aren't events here...plays, sporting events, etc.

But even more than the gift issue in terms of just realizing Christmas is just around the corner, is the whole spiritual aspect of it. Frankly, the decorations and the music and the weather, help me feel in the Christmas mood. And no matter, how much we say it's materialistic, they are the things that I really miss at this time of year (plus my family). Because, hot days, roosters crowing and the occasional artificial tree put in a random air conditioned store display just do not signify Christmas for me. I wonder if it's the same for people who grew up in the southern hemisphere and move to the Northern, if it doesn't feel like Christmas when it's cold. Anyway, I miss the weekly Advent readings in church, the anticipation of children's programs at church, caroling and cookie exchanges with friends from church (not to mention making cookies when the oven is a welcome heat).

I received my extended family's Christmas gift giving email the other week. They always seem to try to come up with a creative, cheap gift to give. This year, they are pretending they are marooned on an island and so for $1 they have to come up with something they would not want to be without. I'd send twinkle lights if I could... :)

(this is our Christmas tree from last year.)