Christmas Day

View of Ballybeen Estate from the church

It has been a long time since I’ve posted, and I apologize.  I could blame it on my time management skills (or lack thereof), but you’ve all heard that tired excuse before.  I’ll just be honest and say that after things started back up in January, it’s like I blinked and here we are in the middle of February.  Maybe you feel like that, too. 

But while I’m at it, I’ll also apologize for the awkward cluster of posts that will follow.  It seems that I can’t just do one post at a time like a normal person.  To catch you up to speed with what’s going on here, I’ll also have to go back a few weeks…to, like, Christmas.  Yes, Christmas on Valentine’s Day.  The holiday magic never stops. 

Right, here we go.

I realize that I wrote a post about Christmas Day and another concerning my Christmas activities, but a lot of you have asked me what I actually did on Christmas.  Well, some of my friends here asked me to join their family for the whole day.  They picked me up at 8.30am, and right from the very beginning, I felt completely at home.  I helped wrap some last-minute presents, watched Home Alone on TV, and even curled my hair in the mirror in their front room.  We went to church together in the morning—it was a short service that mostly consisted of the kids showing off their Christmas presents and pieces of chocolate flying around the room.  Then we went home and ate a beautiful four-course Christmas dinner (thank you, Gayle, Wilma, and Kathryn!).  Later we opened presents and spent some quality time talking over the sticky toffee pudding and waffle berry delight. 

Later that evening, another family of friends asked me over for a little Christmas cake and a couple games of Perudo—a game based on probability that you might have seen in Pirates. 

Like so many other times this past year, people here have reached out to be both friends and family to me, and I really cannot find the words to say how grateful I am.  Over the last six months, God has continuously showed me His care by bringing these friends into my life—and by revealing that an important part of service is realizing that others serve you much more that you could possibly serve in return.

Yes, we are wearing paper crowns.  And yes, the general
reaction is one of disbelief when I say that the Christmas
cracker tradition has yet to take hold in the States.