‘Tis the Season

On Friday night our family set up our Christmas tree.  As is our Christmas tradition, the evening we decorate the tree we have snack supper, play Christmas music, and it’s when it really starts to feel like Christmas is coming.

There are some things that go along with Christmas that feel so siimilar, so familiar. The tree, the songs, family all together. Then there are the things like hanging lights on the Leopard skin that has been in this house since the ’70s, using an artificial tree, and the banana tree growing just outside the living room window.  Or the fact that Jonah and I just got back before dark from Bujumbura (we try to never drive on the highway after dark ~6.00pm all year) because we were in the city trying to sort out car registration with customs, and taxation people. We ended up having a 12-hour day, yet the three appointments had a combined time of less than 5 minutes. Then we tried to fined Diesel on teh way home as tehre is a nation-wide fule shortage for the last couple weeks. 

So there are some things that definitely remind me of my childhood christmas, and some….not so much.

It seems like there was not a lot of years in between us being the kids who go home for Christmas, and us being the ones with kids who come home for Christmas. Actually, there was one year in between.  In 2014 we were back in Canada, celebrating one last Christmas with extended family before we moved here, and 2016 Jonah was coming home from school in Kenya.  Perhaps for our family that is a bit more compressed but I’m sure it feels fast for everyone.

{I suppose it’s also the season to use ’tis,as that’s not something we’d ever consider the other 11 months of the year.}