I LOVE the Christmas Season!
I love everything about or most everything. I love whatever is in the air - the first snow, the parties, the food, hearing O Holy Night at the candlelight Christmas Eve service... and people just seem to be in such a different mood - generous, giving... nice to each other.
When I married Serge, he promised me that I could buy a Christmas tree in Rwanda and didn't have to bring one. I did sort of threaten him that if I couldn't find a tree for our first Christmas, he would be in trouble. I well remember walking into T2000, a Chinese shop here in Kigali and seeing Christmas trees set up about 3 weeks before Christmas. Now this is a BIG deal as it was the first sign of Christmas I had seen. Christmas in Rwanda is pretty non existent. I'll never forget a few years ago walking into our largest supermarket here on Christmas Eve and they were just pulling deocrations out of boxes to sell. I just walked out shaking my head.
Here, Christmas is for children. You buy them sweets and little gifts but it has nothing to do with the adult world. Even church. Pastors may or may not preach a Christmas Sermon.
Each year my heart aches. My heart aches because without Christmas, without God sending his Son Jesus as a baby... where would we be?
As a family, we are determined to enjoy the season. The tree and other decorations went up this week. I heard there was a skiff of snow in Canada - so why not? The kids love it. As they were off putting up a string of lights in each of their rooms, the tears rolled down my cheers with memories of Christmas' past. l know I can't live there but must continue each year to make Christmas meaningful and relevent for our family here in Kigali. Serge assures me he likes our style!
New this year... two Christmas Carol parties - one for Rwandan family and friends and another for other expats. We`ll see how they go. I know the kids and I will enjoy preparing for them. Bring on the cookies!
2 comments:
Christmas is a fairly big deal here...although it's tough to get into it when its 40 C out. =) We're decorating tomorrow and I've worked hard at establishing some good traditions of our own here at the house.
So...Merry Christmas Jen! =)
Good morning how are you?
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Rwanda? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Rwanda in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and a original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com, where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
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