Somewhere in my teenage years my parents decided that it was too much stress to make the trip every year, and so the trips faded out and Christmas changed. I grew up in a Christian family and I knew that Christmas was about the birth of Jesus, but the excitement of having people around and lots of food and presents was a big factor for me.
What followed was a number of years where Christmas diminished in excitement for me. As I entered into my twenties, Christmas day was not much of an event to look forward to. But Christmas Eve took on great importance. Carols services were 100% focused on Jesus. I had the chance to reflect deeply on what Jesus' incarnation really meant to me. I remember some years being greatly moved to tears as it dawned on me how much Jesus loved us that he would come and live in our sinful world. Christmas became so much more to me than it had ever been before, even though our family celebrations were quiet on Christmas Day. (We would often invite our Sri Lankan friends around, and they would come some years.)
As my sister and her husband began to have children, the joy of watching children became something special. I, however would not want that to be the only facet of Christmas, and was therefore greatly appreciative for the epiphany of me early twenties. Then as I married, I suddenly had a new wider family to celebrate with. Christmases in Canada at the farm are still a big event, and they reminded me of my childhood.
Moving to Russia has meant leaving family behind at Christmas time. This at first has not been easy. It was a very special treat that Dan came to visit us last year. But it has also forced us to develop our own traditions. Both Melody and I have enjoyed Christmas Eve services, and decided we could not live with out this chance to worship our Saviour at Christmas time.
So last year we started a new tradition. We invited a bunch of people around who can speak English (whether expats or Russian) and have had an Anglican carols and lessons service. We did this last year in Novosibirsk and again this year in Krasnoyarsk. We have decided that we would like to follow this tradition every year that we are in Russia for Christmas.
It has also been fun to continue each of our own traditions. These include from me- making Ginger Beer and Chocolate Christmas Pudding (both family recipes) and from Melody the whopping big turkeys and the real pine trees.
It is of course really wonderful to see Abigail enjoy Christmas. I would say that the two things she has enjoyed the most this year have been decorating the tree and saying Happy Birthday to Jesus. Next year it will probably be a lot more about the gifts (maybe not), but so far she has handled things very maturely!
It was fun to have our guest Tom around today. It was also fun to go as a family to the ice slides and sculptures in the middle of the day. This was only a 5 minute walk. We will go there many more times this Winter. In fact I think we will go back tomorrow on Boxing Day with our ice skates, before going off to our team celebration.
Enjoy the photos:
On the slides
Action shot
The rink we hope to try out tomorrow
Ice sculptures (These are only a few minutes walk from our place and quite impressive. The ones downtown by the river should be far more impressive and we hope to see them next week.)
Дед мороз. (Ded Moroz- Grandfather Frost, the Russian version of St Nicholas.)
Снегурочка. (Snegurochka- Snowmaiden, Ded Moroz's helper.)
Apparently 2008 is the year of the rat, which personally I find really mundane. I wonder how many rats will be running around at the Beijing Olympics.
Our turkey meal. Even though we can fit in the kitchen, we decided it would be more festive to eat in the living room.
1 comment:
Merry Christmas from the Gerk family in Canada!
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