The 12 Days of Christmas

This has been one crazy busy month leading up to Christmas day. The festivities started the second weekend of the month, so it's really more like The 19 Days of Christmas, but there's no song for that, so we'll just say twelve and move along. :~)

There has been school performances, church services, parties, parties and more parties, listening to Christmas music, baking, sewing, getting sick and sick some more, wrapping, Christmas movie watching...and just, a general soaking up of the joy of this holiday.

It has been a very full time celebrating the day that Jesus was born for us....

And it all started earlier this month with Sydaleigh's lower school Christmas performance.

They sang the funniest Christmas songs! Stuff we never heard while living in the States!


We then had a Christmas party at the Rec Center where Isaak played Santa. :~) Good man.

Actually, the same day as the above Rec Center party, our church had their Christmas service and potluck, and Syd's school graciously let us use their auditorium for the event. They nominated me to be in charge of decorations. It makes me giggle that they asked me, the girl who brought zero decorations to Africa, so I had to sweet talk the Embassy into letting me borrow their extras. And then I had food poisoning the night before thanks to some bad watermelon. Well, it was either food poisoning or some other violent rejection of everything inside me. But the show must go on, so I crawled out of bed, brushed my teeth, and showed up in what I slept in to set up the gym for over a hundred people and managed to decently decorate with a mish-mash of borrowed decorations. That's one thing I just love about living here. You make do with what you have. Period. So we had some green garland strung along the walls next to the purple garland and pink garland, a wreath from here, a Christmas tree from there, mismatched table cloths.....and, it worked. I kept thinking about churches back in the States and how the church has it's own supply of everything to decorate for a variety of different holidays. It's not like that here. There's no church budget for decorations. The congregation rallies and brings stuff from home, buys what's needed with their own money, or goes without. It's pretty cool. I really love our church here.

Sydaleigh was the star in the sky that led the Wise Men to Jesus in the kids play. And Marvelly's class all held up stars for their solo song. I've thought a lot about the star this year. Stars were the only decorations on our cardboard tree and every time I looked at them I would think about how God literally moved the heavens to get our attention and beckon us to Him. I mean, He didn't just tell the Wise Men, "So uhh, good luck with that. Hope ya find Him." No! He didn't abandon them to stumble through life trying to figure out where to go and how to get there on their own. He showed them the way.

He's still showing us the way....the question is whether we're paying enough attention to notice His stars. I never want to be too distracted to notice the "stars" God sends my way. That's a little of what my heart rested on this holiday....

We wrapped the evening by singing Silent Night in seven different languages, representing some of the native tongues in our interdenominational church....English, French, Polish, Dutch, Moore, Afrikaan, and German. It was way awesome. People who can speak more than one language blow my mind. I hope, that maybe in ten more years to be able to hold a decent conversation in French. But then I hear that the older you get the harder it is to learn another language...so, it may be more like twenty. I will get there, maybe.

A couple days later we had the Women's Bible Study Christmas party at my house that nearly forty gals came to. We all managed to stuff ourselves into every pocket of my living room and had a great time eating, fellowshipping, playing a new take on the White Elephant game, and sharing some significant God moments we've had during this study. This is such an eclectic group of ladies, with women from all walks of life and different corners of the earth converging here in Burkina for a whole range of different reasons. God's done good filling my life already with some wonderfully inspiring women. What a blessing to know them...

The next day was Sydaleigh's class Christmas party.

Two nights later was a gathering at Josh and Kelly's house.

The following night was the Ambassador's Christmas party at his home.

There was plenty of food, friends, singing of carols, a chocolate fountain that my girls managed not to spill all over them but somehow Isaak did (??),

an appearance of Santa played by Josh and not Isaak this time...my girls humored him in order to get the candy he was handing out...

We were dressed a little dressier than the rest of the people who came because right after this party we headed to another Christmas party at Fred and Nathanja's house and the attire was as formal as you got. Well, I wasn't gonna wear a ball gown to the ambassador's shin dig so we figured this was a good medium. The majority at the Ambassador's party was Embassy staff and the majority at Fred and Nathanja's are missionaries. I love that God has blessed us with such a wonderful mix of people to enjoy life with here.

Such a fun group of people. We had a ball playing hilarious games, trash talkin', watching the men freak out when a bottle of Vagisil got picked in the White Elephant game.

I think the color of the night was red.

Red. Red. Red. Red. Red.

What can I say, great minds think alike.

Sunday was church and more time spent with friends. Christmas Eve Isaak had the day off so we went to the artisnal village to let the girls pick out a gift for each of us and then we parked it at home, watched Christmas movies, wrapped gifts, let the girls open one present from Mimi,
and baked our Happy Birthday Jesus cake.

Baking a cake is the one tradition that we do every year no.matter.what. We celebrate Christmas in recognition and remembrance of Jesus' birth...so what the heck kind of a birthday celebration is it without cake?! We're all about the cake. Every birthday has to have a cake. It's the rule. We say so. So we bake one every year for Jesus.

Christmas day started early with Sydaleigh waking at 6:40am. We had only placed the gifts my mom sent around the tree the night before, so when she woke up in the morning she couldn't believe that there was more to open. What a funny girl. I love to see their expressions and share in their joy.

Marvelly got the Lion King beanie animals and Flynn and Aurora "squishies" she has been talking about all year. And Sydaleigh got a wooden doll bed and bedding for her Kirsten doll that she has been talking about almost all year too.

Isaak got a little metal man holding a tool box from Sydaleigh because she thinks her Daddy is the best fixer ever. I can't argue that point, the man has skills. I got a new local dress that I helped steer them towards.

After we opened gifts we headed to the orphanage to celebrate Christmas with the kiddos and staff. We brought along bushels of bananas, cartons of milk, cookies, and cheese and crackers to help fill their tummies with a little extra besides potatoes. And we stayed and played and Isaak and Sydaleigh got to meet all of mine and Marvelly's little friends. And we planted seeds of worth and value and importance a little at a time in their young lives. Just a few hours to whisper with our hands that they are not forgotten.

One of the best parts of our Christmas day was getting to serve there together as a family. And hopefully this will also plant seeds in our girl's hearts of sacrifice, and service, and love and selflessness and what it means to share Jesus' love and spread His light. *side note...shortly after I took that picture of Isaak feeding that sweet baby girl...she threw up that entire bottle all over him, her and the floor. It's a rule that you never leave the orphanage without getting covered in someones bodily fluids. :~)

Later that evening we headed over to Justin and Tara's and relaxed with friends.

Whew. What a month. It was full. And full and full. We had a lot of great times, and now we're looking forward to a slower paced January.

Great first Christmas here in Burkina.