Murder threats, princess cakes and Merry Christmases

So it's December 27. Christmas is officially over for another year and we're alternating between crazy tired, cranky "when can normal life resume?" and post-Christmas happy contented little boys who play for hours on end with their new treasures.

One of the hard parts about life here around the holidays is trying to find the balance between celebrating our own American traditions and embracing the traditions and culture around us - which usually means forgoing our traditions. For the past few years, I'll admit - we've shut our curtains, locked our doors and tried to stay in a tiny American cocoon for Christmas week. But the kids are getting older and we're getting more involved in our local church, so we decided this year we would jump in and celebrate with our national brothers and sisters.

So Christmas Eve found us at church. The service was to start at 5 pm, but knowing the local views on time, we planned to leave our house at 5.... which still put us at the church before the pastors showed up! :) By the time the service started, the boys were a bit on meltdown - we were supposed to eat after the service, but since it didn't start til almost 7, we were all starving and had already raided the snacks I had packed. :)

The kids had a service at the same time the adults did. I'm not quite sure what happened in the adult service, but I can tell you there were about 150 little kids crammed in a tiny room and the speaker told the story of Herod chasing Baby Jesus and trying to kill Him! There were no angels or shepherds guarding their flocks; no Baby in the manger. Mary and Joseph were hiding Jesus, running from soldiers, scared to death. Every other word was "murder," "death," or "die." The kids' eyes were wide and horrified. You know, I don't think it really put anyone in a Christmas mood. :) I took the liberty of "translating" the story a bit differently for the boys - threw in the manger and animals and hay and left out "kill" and "die."

After the Bible story we had Birthday Cake for Jesus... I think. It was a huge white frosting tiered thing... similar to a wedding cake.... with Disney princess figurines all over it. I kid you not. There was Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and a few others I didn't recognize because we don't do princesses in our house. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. We sang their version of "Happy Birthday" to Jesus but the words translate somewhat "May you live long this year" which I also didn't think was real appropriate to sing to an Eternal God, but I figure He got the gist. :)

The evening wasn't a total bust though. There were snacks for the boys and they left happy. :) We rushed through baths and threw down a piece of pizza and tried to get them in bed before 9.... so much for "early to bed so Santa can come"!!!

Christmas Day we had a beautiful day at home. I was so thankful. The boys were so excited about all their presents... very simple, small stuff - I think they each had about 5 or 6 things to open, so it didn't take us too long, but was so much fun. We didn't have a present for Ezra so Brant made a chalkboard - cut a thin piece of plywood and painted it with chalkboard paint and then cut a rag for an eraser and got a box of chalk. I think the whole project cost us about $2. He LOVED it. He was screaming so excited drawing and erasing as fast as he could - drawing and erasing, drawing and erasing. Both Brant and I almost cried - it was one of those "perfect gift" moments and was so much fun to see him so excited.

Gift giving is a very touchy subject among missionaries. We are very blessed to have family and friends who send us packages so the boys get import toys for presents and we usually have candy canes and other seasonal treats. But many of our friends don't get presents and packages from out of country, so we have to be very careful when talking with our friends. So right before our friends came for dinner Christmas Day evening, the boys packed up their new toys and put them away.... we celebrated in the evening with a new family from another mission organization. Was fun in a "nice to meet you; have a Merry Christmas" kind of way. :):)

Was such a fun day and we are so blessed to have healthy kids, a nice home, fun presents, and friends to enjoy life with. Very blessed. We all went to bed happy and slept well.

Monday is "Christmas Day 2." I kid you not. It says that on the calendar and is an official holiday. Actually not a bad idea, though I'm not sure it would fly in America with all the after Christmas sales starting in earnest. :) On "Christmas Day 2" you spend the day going around town visiting friends and associates. Every house is EXACTLY the same... really no creativity at all going on here. The kids are given Strawberry Fanta to drink. The adults are served Coke. Room temperature. There are little round plastic boxes of store bought cookies on a table in the middle of the room and you have to eat at least one of each kind. No one has ovens here and buying store bought cookies is a sign of wealth, so even if you are starving the rest of the year, you serve store bought cookies - the wealthier the house, the more containers of cookies. You stay for an hour at each house; eat cookies, drink Coke, chit chat. Then the boys are given a treat to take on the road and you start all over at the next house. Needless to say, we were so sick by the end of the day! But the boys were in heaven... or a sugar induced high, I'm not quite sure which. :)

Again, this was the first year we spent the day visiting. It actually was quite fun and a good reminder that we have built some good relationships with nationals. Most of the people we visited aren't believers and so good to be able to deepen relationships and share our life with them. We visited some people from our old neighborhood and Penny's family and took bags of food - oil, salt, powdered milk, bread, etc.... which is totally not cultural at all, but something we wanted to do to bless them.

To top it all off, today was a wedding! (Yes, we are totally exhausted!) Our pastor at our national church got married... but that is a whole other story in itself! Think bride prices and sermons on why women are worth more than outboard motors... Maybe I'll get around to telling it someday when I stop laughing. :)

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Ten years!!!

Not quite sure where the time has gone, but Brant and I celebrated ten years of marriage today! So thankful for the marriage the Lord has given us!

Kiss-kiss time

So it's Christmas here on the equator, which means I'm sweating as I write this and listening to a garbled version of "Deck the Halls" coming through the window. Christmas 12,000 miles from family and traditions is full of contradictions.... We go all out decorating and having parties and celebrating to combat homesickness. We relish the non-materialistic culture that we currently live in (thought I have spent hours scouring GREAT deals online!) but are going a tad crazy with the non-stop music and firecrackers that disturb any sense of "Peace on Earth." We love getting to create our own traditions and set the tempo of our family's celebrations, but we miss our family and the busyness of the holiday season in America and finding gifts for our kids is really hard (and requires a lot of creativity!)

You can't really get a full grasp of our December without the blaring music in the background, so sorry, just use your imagination. (Or you could find the worst old cassette you own, put it in an old cheap boom box and take it out to the garage and turn it up as LOUD as you can possibly make it.) Wait until you get a headache then you'll get the full experience. :) Sorry, not trying to complain, but the music has been really bad here in our new house and we're all going a bit crazy.

There was a break in the music this morning and Ezra turned to me and said "Where the horses?" When I asked him what horses he was talking about he said "The horses in the church make the music."

Elijah used to think kangaroos made the music in the mosques. :)

So a visual of our life lately....

There has been ornament painting....


(And I was shocked at how good a job they could do! Caleb especially, could stay in the lines on each little ornament.)

There has been tree decorating....


Two guesses on which kid this is.... Brant and I did a double take; we both were sure it was Caleb. But it's Ezra. He's been going around saying "Merry Kiss-kiss tree" all week. My baby is growing up way too fast.

The finished tree.... the boys are really looking forward to getting a BIG tree next year. :)

Because of the poverty and non-gift giving emphasis on Christmas, we never put out presents before Christmas. On our previous island when we had house help come daily, we put out the gifts late on Christmas Eve and then had to have them all cleaned up and put away before she showed up the day after Christmas! Here, my house helper only comes once a week and so we have a few extra days. :)

And there has been lots and lots of cookie baking, decorating and eating. :) My friends and I here in town are swapping cookies - the thought being that we each have to make one type of cookie all season, but we end up with lots of different types. Yeah, really I've been baking kinda non-stop. :) But the more the merrier, and I haven't heard one boy (or man) in this house complain. :)



Our favorite little project so far was putting together this gingerbread house. Last year Brant's aunt brought a "real" gingerbread house ("real" meaning that in theory you could eat all the pieces that came in the cardboard box from Walmart) :) This year we had a foam house - simple to put together and the boys love it. I think the ants and geckos won't like this one as much though!



Part of our dilemma this year has been whether or not to teach the kids about Santa or not.... They actually think it's hilarious that we celebrate Jesus's birthday with images of him being a little baby because "He grew up a long time ago." :) So that part is perplexing enough without throwing in the whole Santa thing. Today Caleb came in and we had the following conversation:

Caleb: "Mom, is Santa real?"
Me: (trying to be very neutral) "What do you think?"
Elijah: "He is real."
Caleb: "Dad says he's not real."
Elijah: "If he's not real, then where do we get presents from?"
Caleb: "We get them from all the people who love us so much."
Elijah: "Well, who do you think gives them the presents in the first place?"
Me: "Well, Christmas is more about celebrating baby Jesus's birthday, not really about Santa or presents."
Elijah: "Mom, baby Jesus grew up a long time ago. He's not a baby anymore."

So that's our week before Christmas. I'm thankful for the fun with the little boys and tired of the music and missing home and a little bit sick from so many cookies. :)

Merry Christmas!

This and that

Life has been a blur since we got back from the tribe. We celebrated Thanksgiving (again!) with friends here in town; we celebrated Caleb's birthday (my brown-eyed boy is five!!!) and we're in full on Christmas mode... all the while trying to keep up with school for Elijah and get ready for furlough (4 months!). And did I mention Brant's work is crazy right now? He was gone til 8 the other night shopping in the big city.

But life has been fun and we're having a good time. Here are a few pics...

The boys on the back porch playing. Caleb is driving the "car" Ezra is the passenger and Elijah is "hanging onto the back like in the movies." I don't know what movies he's been watching lately! :) I seriously don't know where they come up with some of the stuff they do... the other day they were playing "House." I helped them build a fort and they said "Mom, we're going to play 'House.'" Brant was a tad concerned when I told him later that night... until I told him that while playing House they chased off the bad guys who came in, put out a fire when the house caught on fire and then dug out from underneath when the House collapsed in an earthquake. I need a daughter.


Ezra's into "I do it MYSELF." New territory. Guess the first two are lazy as I have never once heard them say that (even to this day!) So he's into dressing himself.... poor kid has stretched out a lot of pairs of PJs this way. 4 more months til we're in the land of dryers and I can shrink stuff back up! :)


I took this pic last night of the boys. It is by far the best pic I have ever gotten of all 4 of my men on the first shot! I love it.


We had such a nice cool summer, but lately it has been HOT. We have been eating tons of watermelon. So nice on a hot day. Not very Christmas-y though. :)


I cook a pumpkin about once a month to get enough pumpkin to make breads for breakfast. The little boys always pick out the pumpkin seeds and we roast them. I never do this kind of stuff in the States. I buy canned. :)


Us all in the heli on our way into the tribe.... I though the boys would freak wearing the head-sets but they did so well.


One last pic from the tribe... Ezra enjoying hot chocolate in long PJs. We really had fun enjoying the cooler weather!


My yogurt failed... I have been making yogurt for 3+ years and had lots of failures early on, but have kinda gotten the knack down. But last month I went to get it when the time was up and this is what I had... I have NEVER seen it do this, nor have any of my friends in town (who all make their own yogurt too!) Prize to anyone who can tell me what in the world happened to it???
(And yes, we did still use it - I mixed it up and used it to make muffins.)


The boys painting "Turkey" hand print cards. I do them every year to keep track of how big they are getting.


We found Ezra his own pair of sunglasses. He was SO excited.


Caleb and his little preschool class on my day to teach.... They were all little Indians for "I" day. (Caleb was too scared to get his face painted!)