It's Saturday. I woke up at 7:30 with a strange inkling to cut my toe nails. Strange indeed. But I did just that and somehow the day already feels productive. After being sick and not accomplishing much...it's nice to know at 7:40am, something has already been achieved; this is how I know I am feeling better.
After that I put on Blue Like Jazz on CD and listened to the wit and brilliance of Donald Miller for an hour before my mom made the trek downstairs to my room and asked me if she needed to wake me up. I thought it was evident that I was already up since Don was talking about his hippy friends that he spent a month with in the bush, but I guess having my head on the pillow and lying in the fetal position threw her off a bit.
The snow has fallen and at last it feels like winter is here. I thought I wanted the snow to stay away as long as possible, but now that it's here, it makes the atmosphere happy. The dullness of brown dead leaves and branches has been covered with the bright newness of sparkly snow. I like it and it makes me want to play my music loudly and dance around the kitchen or bake cookies and deliver them to someone. Isn't it hard to believe that some places don't have snow for Christmas. Australian tradition, so I have heard, is a BBQ on the beach. I can't imagine wearing a bathing suit on Christmas morning but I suppose if that's what you are used to, it could have its charm.
Last year on Christmas morning, I woke up in an orphanage in Thailand with 6 other girls away from home. We found cinnamon sticks at the market so we tried grinding them and then made "cinnamon buns" with white sliced bread and brown sugar. It was a far cry from what my mom usually makes but we pretended it was the greatest thing ever. I remember later that day cooking hot chili peppers over a little fire stove to make a sauce for the Christmas dinner we would have later that evening. The Shan orphan girls sat with me and showed me when to turn the peppers over before they popped and squirted firey juice into the air. Who knew I traded turkey dinner for corragulated blood and chunks of white fat in a bowl of broth. I ate the meal awkwardly with my team, all of us trying to be appreciative. The children who were a family in and of themselves, laughed and ran around and were as joyful as ever. After the meal, they put on a Christmas program for the whole village. Though their situation was more bleak than ours, they had such joy and wanted to share it. Looking back it shames me to remember how hard it was for me. I come from fortunate circumstance and I have God's grace. Some only live with God's grace.
It opened my eyes to see the privilege of a Canadian Christmas and a family to share it with. I'm overjoyed to be home this year in this white wonderland.
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