It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

When thinking about how we wanted to celebrate Christmas, Josh and I purposefully decided to try to spend more of the Christmas season here in Costa Rica this year.  Christmas is actually a pretty big deal here.   Because Thanksgiving is an American holiday, the Christmas season is into full swing by early November.  People put up lights on their houses and have christmas trees.  I was so excited about being a part of the Christmas celebrations here in Atenas before we head back to the States to celebrate Christmas with our families for a week and a half.  Now, you have to understand that our family  has so many Christmas traditions and we all make an effort to be purposeful about  making memories together which is something I have come to love.  So, although I didn't realize it, I had a lot of expectations about how Christmas would be "done" here.  And let me just tell you, it's been a journey of the Lord showing me things about myself and also of discovering the joy of birth of our Savior.  I was so looking forward to having a Christmas tree.  Although they only have cypress trees, I've learned that cypress have an incredible and strong christmas tree smell that just fills a room.  Well,  I went to the fresh market on Friday morning to buy one and they said "it'll be next week."  So, I went back the next week and they said "well, our dad was sick so we won't have them til next week" and by then it didn't make sense to buy one for just two weeks.  So, my dreams of having our first costa rican Christmas tree didn't come to fruition, and since we didn't really have very many other decorations, I felt a little sad.  One of my closest friends here, however, invited us to decorate their families' Christmas tree.  So, Josh and I took our ornamens over to their house and helped to decorate their Christmas tree, complete with hot chocolate and christmas music playing in the background.  It was a very special memory! And we ended up hanging our stockings and getting a cypress wreath, so we still have a little bit of the smell of Christmas at the house.  A week ago, I helped to decorate our church which was so much fun.  Our pastor's wife, Cecilia, was the "jefe" (which means boss).  She had the vision and we all worked together to get it done.  It was so fun to listen to spanish Christmas carols and laugh together as we decorated.  And it turned out just beautifully!  I also had a realization about some christmas carols, both in Spanish and English.  Some of them have nothing to do with Christmas.  There's a Spanish one that is called "Pez en el Rio" which means fish in the river, and the song talks about fish drinking on their way to see the birth of Jesus.  It's pretty funny.  I guess I have never though so much about christmas sons and what they're actually saying.  Tomorrow is the big day of Christmas celebrations at the church.  In the morning is a Christmas party for the kids, and tomorrow evening is a Christmas concert.  Can I please just tell you how fun it would be to be a kid at this church.  Each child gets a gift, a legit gift! and they're going to have games and food.  It's going to be like a carnival, but it's a Christmas party.  I'm really excited about helping out!  So, all this to say, at first I felt disappointed about how I was able to celebrate the birth of our Savior here, but he taught me that deepening relationships and learning new ways to worship Him brings glory to Him and to the birth of His son as much as the other family traditions and celebrations we have.