Merry Christmas!

For some reason this Christmas season seems to have just flown by. Perhaps because I'm not at work with work parties that seem to enhance and add to the feeling. Perhaps it's a blessing since I didn't get to go home this year.

I have been away from home one other Christmas, 1995, when I was on my mission in France. I was in Evry then, in a ward with huge geographical boundaries, so we normally didn't eat much at the members' homes. However, with the Christmas season, the ward mission leader decided to strongly encourage the members to feed us throughout the month and passed around sign up sheets. It was kind of nice to have that. Even with the encouragement, we didn't have "mangez-vous" every day (a missionaryism in France; most appointments were called rendez-vous, but when you got to eat, it was a mangez-vous), but still we got to meet quite a few more members than we'd known before and had some fun experiences seeing how the ethnically diverse members in the area lived, and particularly how they decorated for Christmas.

Or didn't decorate for Christmas. I had thought I'd learned in school that French people had a handful of Christmas traditions, and so I guess I assumed they'd dec their places out like we do in America. But it seems a lot of those traditions were in the nature of traditional as the "traditional" costumes you find on those "representative" dolls. People don't really dress like that any more. And they don't really decorate a lot either. (They did decorate--just not as much.)

On our visits, we asked the hosts what their Christmas memories and traditions included, often noting the toned-down sense we got. The answer I remember best was that they just felt the season for them was just about spending time with family.

Interesting. We do tend to think about it that way too, in the U.S., but that aspect can also have a tendency to get buried in the midst of all the places we have to go--those work parties, school things, concerts, etc.--things that tended to "cumber" my mother, as she wrote about in her story just published in The Ultimate Christmas (I know, shameless plug).

Still, even with all of the sometimes encumbering events, Christmas is about being with family, so it was a little strange to spend another Christmas without my own family. I did get to talk to my parents and then later my sister Nancy on the phone, though, which was nice. And my mom even talked me through some of things that she was doing to get the house ready for the dinner when my brothers and Nancy and their families would be coming over--so, like reading a story with good descriptions, she kind of brought me there with her words. The snowmen were lined up on the shelves and the little village was set out on the desk. The Christmas tree was up and in the family room, with only two stockings this year--one for Mom and one for Dad. What a change that is! She was shaking out the table cloth. Does this look like the right side up? And even better than reading, I got to hear her voice.

On Christmas day in 1995, we ate at the Relief Society president's house, and since she was actually an American, her house was pretty dec'd out, so it did feel a little more homey for the American in me. I also got to talk to my family that day, too. My strongest memory of that day, however, was that we just sat around for what felt like hours--I'm not sure how long it was, actually, but it felt like way too long. And we weren't really doing anything. I hated being idle, so I kept suggesting that we go caroling or something, but nobody was willing to go with me, and missionaries can't just do things alone, aside from the fact that caroling alone is just weird. So I remained crammed on the couch, trying not to get too close to an Elder, and not feeling like much of a missionary, particularly on Christmas. Besides, I really did want to sing. I played the piano in sacrament meetings in that ward, so I didn't get to sing much at all those months in Evry.

Yesterday, however, I did get to sing. And it was wonderful! What a great blessing for me. A girl in one of the colonial wards had posted on the general listserv that she was going to sing in the hospital on Christmas morning and anyone was welcome to come. That just sounded awesome, so I prayed I'd get up on time, and Heavenly Father lovingly answered that prayer. The four other people who came along were great company and had great singing voices, and the girl who had posted even played the guitar along the way, which added a sweet sound.

But the best part of course, was seeing the happy faces of those unfortunate individuals who had no choice but to be out of their homes and idle on the great holiday. We saw some radiating faces, including an elderly woman, probably in her 80s or 90s, who was just a huge smile the whole time. Another woman who had something that prevented her from speaking, wrote us a thank you note on her clipboard and tapped her foot as we sang. What a great treat that was.

Then later in the day, I was also blessed with the opportunity to spend time with a family, friends of mine. A couple weeks ago, when we celebrated the mother's retirement, the friend who prayed the blessing on the food called us a strange family in the prayer. It was kind of funny at the time, but I think his point was that we're all kind of a family though we grew up in different families. And it's true. They're great people, the Rogers, and I'm so glad they opened their home and their hearts to me.

Like my day in Evry, the meal was not "traditional," but that was just fine. I had turkey about a month ago. The laid back atmosphere and feeling like family was the most important thing about the season definitely rang true yesterday. So while I hope next year I can be with my own family, this year was a merry Christmas still. I am so very blessed.