Christmas 2008

Christmas was rather quiet at our home this year; just Connie and I and Jiajing. No family came in from out of town because the big event for us is coming up and everyone is saving up their extra pennies and vacation time for Matthew, our oldest grandson, to celebrate his graduation from high school in the spring. This event is so big and so important I will cut my time short in China this spring so I can attend.

The day before Christmas we decided to attend the first of four Christmas Eve services held at one of our larger churches in the area. The three of us went to the 3 PM service and enjoyed a beautiful time of worship and adoration of our wonderful Lord and savior. The music, dramatics, and message was so beautiful; truly a time to remember the importance of the birth of God’s Son into the flesh of man.

As we left the church I snapped a picture of the nativity scene outside the church.

At 7 PM we decided to attend Christmas Eve service at another area church. This one was much smaller and was one that meant so much to me. It was not a big production from the platform, but simply a time of singing Christmas carols and listening to several people read the Christmas story. It was not a time of performance, but a time of joy with one another and our Lord.

On Christmas morning Connie and I got up at our regular time, but Jiajing was up three hours earlier for her. We don’t normally see her until 10 or 11 AM, but today she was acting like it was Christmas and was probably wondering why we old people were so slow to get into the Christmas activities. Since our grandchildren, who live next door, were going to open their gifts first thing in the morning, we decided to not open ours until they came over for Christmas dinner. We had some gifts for them and we decided to open them together after dinner.

Christmas dinner was a nice meal of turkey and the trimmings that go with it. We formed a line in the kitchen and loaded up our plates – we chose to use paper and not our china this year – and went to find our place at the dining room table. We ate and talked and laughed a lot. It was a special time to be with family.

After dinner we put the leftover food away and cleaned up the kitchen and went to the living room to open our gifts that had accumulated under the tree in the sunroom.

The gifts were simple and practical and we had a good time together opening them up. It was fun watching Jiajing experience an American Christmas.

She probably would have enjoyed a good Chinese meal instead of our western food, but she seemed to enjoy the experience of Christmas in an American home.