In all the weirdness of me, I've always secretly looked forward to my first Christmas away from the birth family.
Don't get me wrong. I love my family, and Christmastime with my crazy cousins and church family is always fantastic. But there's a part of me that feels like my first Christmas away from the birth family is another rite of passage--or perhaps another symptom of the pains of growing up.
So in all the weirdness of me, I've been secretly looking forward to this Christmas for a while. But somehow, the last month got insanely busy with trying to meet datelines to get my visa sorted so I could actually spend Christmas here. Then there was the exhaustion from trying to help plan for Christmas service and stuff while I wasn't even sure if I would be here for it.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, I forgot how much I had been looking forward to this, my first Christmas away from family.
Somewhere in the middle of puppet show rehearsals, writing newsletters and hanging out with kids, I forgot the expectant spirit of Advent.
Somewhere in the middle of trying to find stuff to fill the emptiness of being away from what is familiar, I forgot to even find time to miss the traditions that I've grown up with.
So here I am in the first hour of Christmas morning in a whole new part of the world that is now home, sitting in the home of a friend where I'll be sleeping the rest of this week because the housemates have family in town. The Christmas Eve dinner with the adopted family has long been digested, the cheesy Christmas movies and family games have been put away, and the Christmas tree in Janice's home is lit.
This wasn't at all how I had envisioned my first "grown-up" Christmas. I'm settled in to Te Atatu, but not having my own space to start my own "grown-up" Christmas traditions is creating a feeling of displacement that I hadn't anticipated.
But I wonder if this was exactly how Mary and Joseph felt. It was their first child, and they probably didn't even have the time to get ready for their own family traditions before they had to head to Bethlehem for the census. I wonder if they had themselves envisioned what the birth of their first child was going to be like, and how far it might have been from what they had expected.
Yet somehow in the midst of all the hustle and bustle and feelings of displacement, the Christ-child came. So as exhausting as this whole month has been (I barely even noticed this is the first blog post in over a month...), and in spite of the fact that it is 1 am and I have to be up in a few short hours for a long, long day of festivities, I'm taking a few moments to breathe in the Christmas air. I'll shed a few tears for the traditions that have now been broken, and give thanks for new beginnings and new hope that could only happen because of this Christ-child.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Love from Aotearoa,
Jael
Don't get me wrong. I love my family, and Christmastime with my crazy cousins and church family is always fantastic. But there's a part of me that feels like my first Christmas away from the birth family is another rite of passage--or perhaps another symptom of the pains of growing up.
So in all the weirdness of me, I've been secretly looking forward to this Christmas for a while. But somehow, the last month got insanely busy with trying to meet datelines to get my visa sorted so I could actually spend Christmas here. Then there was the exhaustion from trying to help plan for Christmas service and stuff while I wasn't even sure if I would be here for it.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, I forgot how much I had been looking forward to this, my first Christmas away from family.
Somewhere in the middle of puppet show rehearsals, writing newsletters and hanging out with kids, I forgot the expectant spirit of Advent.
Somewhere in the middle of trying to find stuff to fill the emptiness of being away from what is familiar, I forgot to even find time to miss the traditions that I've grown up with.
So here I am in the first hour of Christmas morning in a whole new part of the world that is now home, sitting in the home of a friend where I'll be sleeping the rest of this week because the housemates have family in town. The Christmas Eve dinner with the adopted family has long been digested, the cheesy Christmas movies and family games have been put away, and the Christmas tree in Janice's home is lit.
This wasn't at all how I had envisioned my first "grown-up" Christmas. I'm settled in to Te Atatu, but not having my own space to start my own "grown-up" Christmas traditions is creating a feeling of displacement that I hadn't anticipated.
But I wonder if this was exactly how Mary and Joseph felt. It was their first child, and they probably didn't even have the time to get ready for their own family traditions before they had to head to Bethlehem for the census. I wonder if they had themselves envisioned what the birth of their first child was going to be like, and how far it might have been from what they had expected.
Yet somehow in the midst of all the hustle and bustle and feelings of displacement, the Christ-child came. So as exhausting as this whole month has been (I barely even noticed this is the first blog post in over a month...), and in spite of the fact that it is 1 am and I have to be up in a few short hours for a long, long day of festivities, I'm taking a few moments to breathe in the Christmas air. I'll shed a few tears for the traditions that have now been broken, and give thanks for new beginnings and new hope that could only happen because of this Christ-child.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Love from Aotearoa,
Jael
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