Blog: 12/25/09
I was anxious about being away from home for my first Christmas. What big shoes of nostalgia to fill... It was wonderful, though, blessings from unexpected places.
For a certain part of the Christmas season, I was in American “gift-mode” and was brainstorming what to get all the different people I work with and am friends with. It quickly added up to quite a number, and I started to stress about how to purchase everything on a YAV stipend. In the madness, I finally stopped to ask one of these friends if gift-giving was the norm. Turns out, it’s not. Even within families sometimes, people are not always exchanging gifts. Hmmm…is this Christmas?
I was cracking up while reading my friend’s blog, who was also questioning the meaning of Christmas… I learned there that:
“St. Nicholas, as it turns out, is most famous for his gift, not of oranges, but of bags of gold to a family so poor that they could only hope to sell their daughters into prostitution. In order to avoid this damning act, Old St. Nick left bags of a gold on their doorsteps to use as a dowries for their weddings instead. That's it. That's the whole story.”
Kenyans are definitely keeping this spirit of Christmas alive. Instead of buying things for each other, most families choose to do something for others that are in need. This, they claim, is the real joy of giving and of the season. One of my friends and his mom took a homeless man into their home and gave nice meals for the holiday. The Christmas party for the children in Kibera that I worked on was sponsored and run by many other such spirited people. Ah, we haven’t lost it everywhere, it turns out.
I know it warmed my heart to see the givers and the receivers having a blast at the children’s Christmas party. Actually, I was corrected a number of times that it wasn’t their party, but that it was “Jesus’ party.” I always think it’s horribly cheesy and adorable at the same time when kids sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus, but in this setting, it seemed oddly fitting. Jesus would want this kind of party- people gathering from the margins, eating bread and jelly sandwiches, drinking tea, singing and dancing. You see, this way we all have something and we are all sharing in this mysterious incarnation thing together.
This season, I’ve also been racking my brain about what it means to these children that “a child is born unto them…” I still haven’t really figured it out, nor do I think I ever will, but I think it’s a little bit like the glitter. You see, my job was to lead the craft portion of the party. Nothing special, just a little cut and paste job, but what I didn’t anticipate was the glitter factor. Glittery paper trees were only the beginning, as I would soon find out. There were glittery fingers, glittery faces, glittery tables and chairs, glittery hair, glittery clothes, a glittery floor, etc. It was a fun phenomenon how this little craft transformed the hearts and faces of these little ones, as well as a dirty and dingy church into something that sparkled. And maybe that’s how this mysterious birth comes into our lives too. It’s in these little specs that reflect light and cling to you and everything else.
My flecks of glittery Christmas this year came in the form of Grace, our adopted grandmother in Kenya. She took us to church, then took us home for a delicious meal and homemade eggnog. Our little lost American group fell asleep by the fireplace on Christmas Eve while listening to the likes of Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby on vinyl. Pretty perfect, save teleporting my family.
Here’s to you and yours! And here’s some pics… J
Deanna
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