Tuesday, December 26, 2006
A Quiet Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas, all. We hope you had as lovely a time as we did this year.
Niece Gretchen came over early the day before Christmas. We had a lovely steak dinner together with Ryan and Mark, Jonathan's buddies. Christmas Eve we went to Dakar Academy for a carol sing. Or so we thought. It turned out it was more of a concert of a small choir from the missionary community. They did a very nice job, though it was a more formal evening than we expected. We returned home to wrap presents, staying up later than we'd have preferred!
Gretchen spent the night with us. Jonathan woke at 5:30, but is old enough to have mercy on his elders. He let us sleep until 8, I think. Then we had a very quiet Christmas for the first time in years. The church in Ouakam decided to limit the celebration to Sunday morning and some cake and soda afterwards. We had no marathon worship service in order to stay up until midnight this year. Hurray!! And we also had no Christmas day obligations that cut short our family time together. Our girls had a few church-oriented, instead of family-oriented, Christmases growing up. That is hard on the kids and hard on Jane and I, too. So, thank you, Lord for a break this year. We opened presents and played Jonathan's new PS2 game and watched movies and read books and feasted on baked potatoes and some of the last of the frozen chicken from Europe. Best of all, we got to talk to both Allison and also Anna and Frankie.
Of course, I am not saying that a family-oriented approach to Christmas is some kind of biblical mandate. A church-focused day would be a fine way to celebrate the Lord's birth. In fact, it might be a better custom than gift-giving gone mad!
Not that we had a huge pile under the tree this year. A couple of packages from the US will show up in January some time. As will ours coming in the other direction! We were not very organized again this year. We had stockings up on our mantle above our fire-less fireplace (perhaps the only one in Dakar!), but there were no gifts in them this year. I'd make resolutions about getting on top of Christmas shopping next year, but at this stage in life, I'm coming to accept my own nature and learning to rejoice in the reality of today. From that perspective, it was a marvelous day filled with fun and family!
Gretchen spent the night with us. Jonathan woke at 5:30, but is old enough to have mercy on his elders. He let us sleep until 8, I think. Then we had a very quiet Christmas for the first time in years. The church in Ouakam decided to limit the celebration to Sunday morning and some cake and soda afterwards. We had no marathon worship service in order to stay up until midnight this year. Hurray!! And we also had no Christmas day obligations that cut short our family time together. Our girls had a few church-oriented, instead of family-oriented, Christmases growing up. That is hard on the kids and hard on Jane and I, too. So, thank you, Lord for a break this year. We opened presents and played Jonathan's new PS2 game and watched movies and read books and feasted on baked potatoes and some of the last of the frozen chicken from Europe. Best of all, we got to talk to both Allison and also Anna and Frankie.Of course, I am not saying that a family-oriented approach to Christmas is some kind of biblical mandate. A church-focused day would be a fine way to celebrate the Lord's birth. In fact, it might be a better custom than gift-giving gone mad!
Not that we had a huge pile under the tree this year. A couple of packages from the US will show up in January some time. As will ours coming in the other direction! We were not very organized again this year. We had stockings up on our mantle above our fire-less fireplace (perhaps the only one in Dakar!), but there were no gifts in them this year. I'd make resolutions about getting on top of Christmas shopping next year, but at this stage in life, I'm coming to accept my own nature and learning to rejoice in the reality of today. From that perspective, it was a marvelous day filled with fun and family!
