Christmas Celebrations

Opening Christmas Presents!

Today was my official first Christmas in Zambia! I was woken up by Nate (one of our volunteers) banging on my door at 6 am yelling "Merry Christmas!" If you know me at all, you know I am NOT a morning person. Perhaps if Nate was 4 years old it would have been cute. Not so cute for a 20 year old. However I was up and we gathered at Jake & Jessi's house to open presents with their two young daughters.  Eating swedish nut bread (my gram's recipe and my fav breakfast for Christmas) and drinking Cinnamon spice coffee, we exchanged gifts and watched the girls open their presents with great joy.

Our afternoon was spent with wonderful friends from town as we shared a large, and delicious lunch. My parents then called me using facetime for a video chat. I was able to watch them open the presents I sent. I love technology! To make it even better, I did a video chat with my entire family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents). It was so great to see their faces but it made me a bit more homesick then I already was. However, it's been a great Christmas and I'm looking forward to the upcoming New Year!

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Songs

driving through Nsongwe Village

I had a revelation while driving to town the other day. Have you ever noticed how many Christmas songs talk about snow and cold? White Christmas came on my ipod and I was singing along, but then I looked at my surrounding. There has never been a white christmas in zambia. Instead it's a very green Christmas. Growing up in Chicago, Christmas is cold and usually white. However, Christmas is during the summer for half of the world- Zambia included. While my family and friends back in Chicago are hoping for a white christmas, Jake, Jessi, and I are hoping for a wet Christmas. With the rains comes cooler temperatures. Dry days here are above 100 deg F- not exactly like the Christmases "I used to know." But what makes Christmas? Is it the snow and cold? Family traditions? Presents under the tree? Sure, I love all of the joys of Christmas but let's never forget our true joy: the birth of our Savior. So whether or not your Christmas this year is white, know that the true source of our joy is in Him. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Traditions

Every family has their own Christmas traditions. They're what we've grown up with, what we associate the holiday season with. It can be certain foods, midnight church services, Christmas carols, etc. You don't really realize how unique, and even how important they are to you until you're away from your family on Christmas for the first time.

This is my first year staying through rainy season (obviously also through Christmas) here in Zambia. The base is quiet, with only myself and another family making up the "foreign" staff. Jessi and I have been planning Christmas by combining all of our favorite traditions together. The first one has been the great cookie bake. Now my mom usually bakes the christmas cookies, while my sister, brother, dad, and I "help" as the taste testers. However, Mom isn't here so Jessi and I pulled together all of our favorite recipes (thanks, Mom, for sending the recipes for my favorite cookies!) and spent an entire day baking cookies. We started our baking day by laying out a game plan. After a short discussion of whether we should half the recipes or not (deciding on not) we starting the baking spree. By dinner time we had made about 20 dozen cookies. For 3 adults and 2 young kids. That's a lot of cookies!! Did we get carried away? Sure! The good part about all these cookies is now we have lots to share with our zambian and missionary friends here. There's nothing like the taste of your favorite, childhood Christmas cookie to make you feel a bit more connected to home despite the thousands of miles of separation.