Christmas 2013

There is just something fun and special about traditions.  Things our family does the same every year to celebrate Christmas.  Some of our traditions include putting the kids to bed on Christmas eve and then setting up the packages under the tree and filling the stockings and getting everything ready for when the kids walk through the door into the front room on Christms morning.

Ready for the kids (some sneaky little elves snuck out at night and hung candy canes all over the room, much to the parent's surprise!)

Another tradition:  Our kids aren't allowed to just 'get up and go' on Christmas morning.  Matt and I go out first, get the Christmas music playing, light candles and then we have the mandatory filming of each kid walking out into the front room.

Then it's time for opening presents.  We like to take it slow and enjoy the gifts as they are opened.  We often pause for a hot chocolate and brunch break.  (Depending on how many gifts there are, sometimes it's just after all the gifts are opened.)

Hot chocolate break

Christmas Peeps to go with the hot chocolate

For brunch, we have our traditional egg casserole and sweet bread.  Most years we have cinnamon rolls, but this year, due to sick kids and sleepless nights, I cheated and used some cinnamon-raisin bread we had been gifted by a friend.

Once the presents are opened and brunch is over, we just lounge around, reading new books, building new lego sets, playing with new toys.

'Christmas with the Kings' is also a part of our annual tradition.  I think the tradition started years ago with 'Boxing Day with the Kings' and eventually became Christmas Day instead.  Now, I can't imagine Christmas in PNG without our 'family'!

We enjoyed Christmas lunch on the verandah with roast chicken and all the trimmings.

 Then we spent the next few rainy hours playing games, watching movies and just hanging out.  When the rain stopped, it was outside to jump on the trampoline and play on the slip-n-slide.  We finished off the day with more movies and games and lots of Christmas goodies.

Catching air!

Thanks to Phil King for many of the great photos!

Christmas Eve 2013

In my opinion, Christmas isn't Christmas without a Christmas Eve candlelight service.  It's just something that's been a part of my Christmas' for as long as I can remember.

I've been thankful that we've been able to continue that tradition here, even in PNG. 

This year however, there was no Christmas Eve service.  Instead, there was a Christmas play, put on in the afternoon.  It wasn't quite the same as singing carols by candlelight, but it was an amazing play (written by a friend!), that shared the story of Christmas in a memorable way.  It was a play about a group of teens putting on a Christmas play, and what they learned in the process.  And, three of my kids were able to take part in it.  Nathan was a shepherd.  Kaitlyn played the part of Mary.  And Elijah even had a cameo appearance as the toddler Jesus.

Being chosen to play the part of Mary

The Wise Men visiting Jesus

 A big thanks to Karen Weaver for the good photos!  (You can tell the good ones from our blurry ones!)

After the play, we spent the rainy evening eating warm soup and sitting around the lighted Christmas tree, with candles glowing and reading the Christmas story.

"Be Joyful Always.... Give Thanks in All Circumstances.."

This verse in 1 Thessalonians is my mantra for today.  I think I've already repeated it to myself a dozen times this morning so far, and I've barely got the kids out the door for school today.  But honestly, I'm having to repeat it over and over to myself because I'm having a really hard time following it today.

Today is Thanksgiving.  Or at least, it's supposed to be.  But here, it's just a normal school/work day.  I've gotten fairly used to that over the years.  But this is the first year (I think in our 10 years in PNG) that we are doing absolutely nothing to celebrate it.  And I'm having a hard time with that.

It's not that I'm not thankful.  I have SO much to be thankful for.  But finding joy today when I just want to cry is more the issue.  Maybe I can just chalk it up to hormones, but really, it's more than that.

Last year, we had probably the most "Thanksgiving-like" day that we've ever had here.  You can see it HERE.  We did all the traditional Thanksgiving things... hang out for the entire day, eat way too much food, play games, chat, re-visit the leftovers in the evening.  It was wonderful.

But this year, after hosting Thanksgiving get-togethers for the last couple of years, I just am tired.  We've had tons going on and I just honestly am not up to hosting a big get-together.  I guess a part of me is discouraged by feeling that unless we host and invite and plan, no one will invite us to something.  And so, we aren't having Thanksgiving this year.

I'm planning to have a special dinner tonight, just for our family, between helping the kids with their homework and Matt rushing off to play Floorball after dinner.  Not quite the same.  And it won't be a fancy turkey dinner complete with all the fixings.  (This year, it would actually be possible to procure a turkey -- it's not always possible--- but it would literally cost over $80 to buy one!!!  So even though it's is possible, it ain't gonna happen!)  But it's hard to go through our non-holiday, knowing that back home, loved ones are getting together and laughing and talking and eating turkey and we are just having a 'just-like-any-other-day' here.  It's easier to handle when we have plans to get together with friends and celebrate with them. 

But, since that's not happening this year, I'll just try to keep busy, and go on a Facebook fast so I don't have to see everyone's Thanksgiving posts, and keep reminding myself of how much I have been blessed with and try my best to "be joyful always."

A Lego Party

On Tuesday of this week I realized that we had talked about throwing a belated birthday party for Justin on Saturday.  (His 7th birthday happened while we were in the village.)  So I quickly emailed out invitations to his friends and tried to come up with ideas for a party.  Then it hit me.  Lego!  My boys love lego and spend hour after hour playing with them.  So a lego party it was!

As I looked online for ideas, I once again felt how hard it is to party plan here in Ukarumpa land.  Back home, all the shops and such are just down the road where you can buy party decorations or favors or whatever you need.  Not here.  Here, basically I have to use whatever we might have managed to bring over, or what I can make myself.  So I had to get creative.  Thanks to Pinterest, I found some ideas (and tons more that I just couldn't possibly do here).  I'm totally kicking myself now for not buying several Lego minifigures while I was in Australia in August to get Elijah's teeth fixed.  I literally stood at the Lego section in Target for a good 20-30 minutes staring at them, not able to figure out if I should buy some or not (the curse of returing to the excess of the 1st world after living in the 3rd world for so long!).  I ended up not buying them, and now I really regret it!  They would have made awesome party favors and game prizes!

We ended up with several Lego-themed games.

A "Guess how many Lego are in the jar" game.

Pin-the-Head on the Lego Man.

As usual, E had to get in on the fun.  Getting him to head the right direction was a challenge though!

He finally went the right way, and ended up being one of the closest!

A Lego relay race where the teams had to carry the all the Lego from one bucket to another, using only a serving spoon, and once they had all been transfered, be the first to build a tower using all the Lego.

Then we had presents........

E commandered J's new birthday cars!

 .....and cake.

Lego brick cake

"Lego"-men Jigglers

After the kids had eaten their fill, it was outside for a Lego pinata. 

Apparently, a pinata made out of a cereal box, toilet paper rolls cut in 3rds and tissue paper is just too strong.  We finally resorted to Matt pitching it to Nathan like a baseball, and that did the trick!

Candy!!!

We ended the party with Lego play.