Christmas Traditions

 What is important to you when you think of Christmas traditions?  Is it decorating the house?  A Christmas tree?  Is it going to church?  Is it a big meal with family?  Maybe its caroling or buying gifts (or unwrapping gifts) that you most enjoy?  Are any of these traditions essential?  In the famous story, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” he steals all the trappings of Christmas away, but the Whos down in Whoville still manage to celebrate.

Our son getting into the Christmas spirit

Sometimes Christmas on the Islands can feel a little bit like Whoville after the Grinch has come through.  Not that someone has come through and taken away all the trappings and trimmings of Christmas, but rather that they’ve never been put up in the first place.  Christmas is just another day on the islands.  Just today Tom received a message asking if he could help administer some exams on Christmas morning!  Imagine doing an exam on Christmas morning! (He politely declined.)  It is a strange feeling to celebrate a holiday that nobody else cares about.

Over the years, we’ve learned to adjust our expectation around Christmas.  One of them is the day itself.  Although we do take the day off from work and do something as a family, it’s also normal to celebrate a second Christmas or a pre-Christmas.  This year we celebrated a pre-Christmas with our family during our time away on vacation with presents, turkey and Christmas carols all on that auspicious day of December 12.  And we look forward to being together with our island brothers and sisters on the weekend after the day itself.  Our island brothers and sisters are creating a tradition of waiting until the weekend to do any celebrating, and it strikes us that this is probably just as well.

Tree at airport on vacation

While we were on vacation, Megan received a message from an island sister asking us to bring back Christmas decorations for her to decorate her house.  Tom was against it.  Why does she need a Christmas tree?  Could anything be more foreign?  Do we really want to encourage that the only way to celebrate Christmas is to bring things from overseas?  But Megan countered that we decorate our house.  We have a Christmas tree.  Do we expect people to do something different from what we are modeling?  Besides, Christmas trees have become a ubiquitous symbol of Christmas.  Write the word Christmas on your phone and the emoji that pops up is a Christmas tree.  Go to Tokyo, Singapore, Nairobi or Rio de Janeiro and you will see Christmas trees.  Can we really expect our island brothers and sisters to not want to connect to this global cultural symbol?  Needless to say, we got her some decorations, including the small plastic tree she requested.  

So often our ideals of wanting to respect and honor local culture are brought down by the realities of a globally connected world.  As if to emphasize this reality, our house-helper shared that her daughter on seeing our decorations asked her mom about it.  She told her it was our tradition to do it in December to celebrate Noeli (i.e. Christmas).  To which her daughter asked, “Mom, can we decorate our house for Christmas, too?”

We could certainly get together with our colleagues and argue over the pros and cons of decorating our houses.  As much as we may try to not impose our traditions on others, sometimes our traditions are attractive—that’s certainly the case with Christmas.  Our decorations lead to curiosity, conversations and sharing.  On our door, we have 8 little posters.  Four of them are in English and each depicts one of the themes of Advent: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.  The other four have those same words in the island language.  Whenever anyone asks, we get the opportunity to share about the One who gives us hope, and how we find peace in Him, and how joy wells up in a life given over to Him, and how we can know a steadfast love that has been tried and tested and found worthy—a love that will never give up and never end.  

Setting up our little island tree

A great conversation awaits, thanks to some simple Christmas decorations.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We made it back safely to our island home with all our luggage! Megan’s back did great through all the travel. Our daughter’s health was also good. We are very thankful for the time away and also for being home again. Though it is very hot and humid, we are thankful for good power and water since being home. There were some difficult situations while we were gone, but we are thankful for our colleagues that temporarily took over our role as crisis advisers and that God has been present in those different situations. Megan was able to sit and talk with Ma Jadza about her mom’s passing and offer some words of comfort. Tom has gotten to reconnect with Mtsa and Muki and they are restarting their studies together today. Elewa is feeling much better.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for the celebrations this week— that we would have more opportunities to share the hope, peace, joy and love of the season with our island friends. Pray for the gathering with island brothers and sisters— some details are still vague, pray that it would all come together and be an encouragement to all to attend. Pray for rain to give some relief from the heat. Pray for an island brother’s wife— she has been a growing presence in the community of island sisters. She is very ill and had to travel off-island— pray for her healing. We’ve heard that there is a lot of sickness on the islands right now— pray for good health (especially for our daughter and others with compromised immune systems) and healing for those who are sick.