Different this year

 

This year doesn’t feel so Christmassy.  Parties are out.  Large Christmas plays or pageants may be super spreaders and grandparents may not be able to attend.  It’s hard readjusting our expectations with traditions that mean so much to us.  I get it.  The last two Christmases our family had to redefine what Christmas looked like to us.     In 2018 we had recently arrived in Lebanon and we were adjusting to life in a new country away from friends and family.  We had been surprised that while Thanksgiving is obviously and American holiday, Black Friday sales are worldwide.  This was definitely to our advantage as we were appreciative for the deep discounts on appliances we needed to purchase for our apartment.

Our neighborhood in Beirut was primarily Muslim sandwiched between two Christian neighborhoods.  We were walking distance from lights and enormous trees, so some scenes felt like home.  The decorations at the mall especially left our children wide eyed with enormous ornaments hanging from the ceiling.     Our church had various special programs and concerts leading up to Christmas Day and we found that it is traditional for each child’s name to be taken by a member of the congregation who fills a shoebox for them.  We have participated in filling shoeboxes stateside to be sent overseas, but it was also special reaching out to the children in the congregation as well.  Additionally, it meant a lot to our family that while we hadn’t been attending very long at all, they made sure to include each of our girls.     Christmas was in the air, and yet it still wasn’t the same.  The songs were primarily sung in Arabic and we knew many of the tunes, but others were new to us.  My favorite drive-through living nativity was an ocean away in Tallahassee, but I loved seeing the almost life-size nativities in some of the Christian neighborhoods.  I think we felt the starkest difference Christmas morning though.  Nothing tasted right.  As much as I’d tried to get the right seasonings to make my own sausage for a breakfast casserole, beef doesn’t taste the same as pork sausage.  Before this, we’d been enjoying the new sights and cultures, but there were still twinges of homesickness.

As I was beginning to be wrapped in self-pity, sounds burst forth reminding me that while Christmas is better spent with family, and traditions are wonderful, Christmas really is about Christ.  As I mentioned, we lived in a predominately Muslim neighborhood and could hear the calls to prayer distinctly from two mosques on either side of us.  On Christmas Day though they were silent and instead we heard the songs of Christmas loud and clear.  An orthodox church nearby projected their choir singing over speakers that could be heard throughout the area.      We got to continue enjoying the season longer than normal due to Armenians and Orthodox who celebrate Christmas twelve days later.

While it may have seemed that by Christmas the second year in Lebanon, we would be more settled, it was not the case.  Protests had recently broken out in Lebanon and the government resigned at the demands of the people.  We’d also just moved to the Beqaa Valley near the Syrian border.  As a result of the roadblocks, we were unable to find much of the gifts we’d wanted for the girls (and also discovered that items are rarely found out of season- and winter was not the season for bikes).   While the gifts at the top of the wish lists were unobtainable, pork was not.  I had a meeting in Beirut where we knew of a pork butcher (in a Christian neighborhood) and took a cooler with me transporting the meat back over the mountain by bus so Christmas would at least taste right.  I also had fun baking Christmas cookies with an American teammate and delivering them to our neighbors who in turn returned the plates later with dates or cookies they baked.  Unfortunately, all the Christmas baking may have led to the empty propane tank in the middle of cooking Christmas dinner.  Thankfully, we had some charcoal and Tommy was able to grill the pork chops while I finished off the rest in and on our diesel furnace in the living room.     But I think the highlight of the season was sharing in the center and refugee camps about the journey that Mary and Joseph took to Egypt after Jesus was born to escape King Harrod.  I shared that we do not worship a distant God who does not know our pain, his parents quickly left their home and family in order to protect him.  It resonated with Syrian refugees.   We do not worship a king who had everything lavished upon him.  Rather we have a savior who wants us to see that despite the trials of this life, He understands, and He is with us.  Emanuel.   I know this year is unlike any other Christmas.  And yet, the reason we celebrate is unchanging.  God loves us enough that Christ came to be with us, and that is reason to celebrate.