Extending Christmas

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As a general rule, our family decorates for Christmas before the first Sunday in Advent, and undecorates sometime after January 6th. Then, the Christmas decorations get replaced with snowflakes or hearts or "Happy Birthday, Daddy." This year, our family was doing everything we could to extend Christmas... A still wants to listen to Christmas music every time we're in the car, D is still reading the stack of Christmas books we bring out every year, and B is still working on Christmas art pieces that we didn't get to over break. (and Mike was also very sad when the last of the decorated sugar cookies were eaten... so he's requested more for Valentine's day.) We were determined NOT to undecorate... for undecorating meant deciding which Christmas decorations will go in a suitcase, which will go into storage and which will be given away. This was a reality none of us was really ready to face once the calendar flipped to January 2023, but it was, in fact, unavoidable. 

 As soon as 2023 hit, we starting having really good days... the kids would spend a whole Saturday playing "Hotel" where they packed suitcases, checked into new bedrooms and pretended to speak in foreign languages. They literally played this game ALL DAY... and they got super mad at us when we made them clean up for dinner. Or when we were at the playground and D started shouting "Mirupafshim Suckers" before he would slide down a long slide. (Mirupafshim means good-bye in Albanian... as a family, we've been trying to learn a few basic words and phrases. None of us will ever forget "Mirupafshim" now. Ha!) And we started having really bad days... when all three kids decide collectively that they will not be moving to Albania and loudly let us know that they will be staying here. Or when I bought giant suitcases last week and cried all the way home, both because I got a great deal on the exact suitcases that we had seen at Target and "God really does care about the little things!" and because giant suitcases means we're packing to leave.
A. showing how big and fun a suitcase with 4-way wheels can be

But before we leave, there's a lot that has to happen first. Planning, Sorting, packing... and first priority right now, finding our team of supporters. Here's a moment to be real... raising support again is kind of weird. And raising support for a family requires a whole lot more time and effort and energy then when I did this as a single lady. And now there are kids who check in with us every day, "What's our support number today? Can we see the chart again?" During family prayer time, one of the kids always prays for "our supporter numbers to go up." And sometimes it does feel weird, especially when certain Christian traditions are now viewed by our culture as hurtful and unhelpful. (And let's be honest, a lot of these traditions are hurtful and unhelpful). But at the same time, Mike can't keep his job when we move out of the country... too many security issues in the software world. And we're moving to a country where they have so few jobs that the people themselves move to a different country to find work. So having people on this side of the world "send us" to that side of the world is how we need to get there. So we work on finding our team. We write letters, we send pledge cards, we send thank you notes and follow up emails and we pray. We pray a lot about it now. And everyday, I ask God, "What do I do today, God?" And some days, it's follow up with this person, contact the office about this person, write thank you notes to these people. And one day, as I was grocery shopping and asking God what I was supposed to do today, God's answer was "Undecorate the Christmas tree." 

 Me: What? No, God, I'm not doing that. 
 God:You asked. The task for today is to undecorate the tree. 
 Me: No! We're extending Christmas this year and we have small group tonight and I don't want the house covered in boxes. I'm not doing that today, God. 

 and when I got home, I asked Mike to pray and confirm that I was NOT supposed to undecorate the Christmas tree. And, of course, Mike's answer was, "I think you're supposed to undecorate the Christmas tree." 

 Me: Fine. You know what? I'm going to do this whole thing: we're going to have a hot chocolate bar, and I'm going to put on Christmas music and when this all goes wrong, you'll see that undecorating today was a terrible idea. In your face, God! 

 So the kids got off the bus, and there was Christmas music and hot chocolate and candy canes and marshmallows... and we started taking down ornaments and chatting about what each ornament stood for and we realized that we were missing a few "travel ornaments" (we always get an ornament when we travel to somewhere new.) And we finished the tree and it was fine.
And then an unexpected package was delivered. Mike's brother and sister-in-law, who had been sick and missed the family Christmas gathering, had sent a package... of Christmas presents for the kids. So we quit sorting ornaments and the kids opened presents and Christmas music played and the smell of peppermint hot chocolate filled the air. 

 and Christmas was extended just a little bit longer.


 

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