A South African Christmas

Sometimes my immune system likes to give up on Christmas day. More often than not, I tend to get a cold on the holiday (or so it seems – maybe I just notice it more often). Well, that's what happened again this year. On Christmas Eve I lay in my bed, wide awake – not waiting for Santa but rather battling with a terribly dry and scratchy throat. "Oh man," I thought. "This is not how I want this Christmas to be."

Thankfully, despite the fact that I didn't feel well at all, it turned out to be a good day.

Christmas morning we woke up early and headed off to church. This was probably the hardest part of the day for me since we did not sing Christmas songs and the sermon was not about the birth of Jesus. In fact, it just felt like another typical Sunday at BCI, which was really disappointing. But at least the sermon was about Jesus so I guess that's something. I did my best to choke back tears as I tried to sing along to songs that I didn't know.

Afterwards, though, the day definitely started looking up. When we were dismissed from church we headed back to the manse for our "team Christmas" time where we opened our presents and stockings and then ate a lot of cinnamon rolls for "second breakfast." For lunch we then headed off with Marco and Melanie Voller, a couple from our church who invited us over for the afternoon. We ended up at Marco's parent's house in Woodlands, surrounded by lots of people and tons (and I do mean TONS) of food. I think they're might have been 5 different platters of meat alone, not to mention all the salads, side dishes and desserts. It was delicious – but more importantly we got to spend more time with Marco and Melanie who are a really awesome couple. It's moments like this that I am happy to be here – even though I wasn't with my family and even though I had a terrible cold. By the time we left to head back to the manse, our car was packed with leftovers and medicine by incredible people who invited us into their homes on Christmas day no less.

Still, it is nice to have Christmas day behind us now, even though it is a great holiday. But it was one of the things I was dreading about coming here and now it is over. Plus now I know what it is like to feel like to "skip Christmas," - living in a church community that doesn't really talk about it as well as being stripped of tons of commercialism that is associated with the day (and that I generally hate). It's both a good and bad thing. One, I am sure, that I won't forget any time soon.