A different kind of December

December--the month of Christmas décor, bright lights, the scent of pine trees and apple cider in the air, colder temps, hustle and bustle everywhere, and the exchange of cookies and gifts--a unique time of year.  Whether you are one that truly enjoys the season or merely tries to accomplish all that the season brings, you have to admit that it's a wondrous time.  It's my personal favorite month of the entire calendar.

December in Ecuador, as you would imagine, is greatly different from December in the States.  One can find Christmas décor, but it's similar to being on a scavenger hunt--you'll only locate it if you're purposefully looking for it.  A handful of houses in town have one string of lights up--not an entire house is decorated--usually just a doorway or a balcony.  Pine trees?--not a one.  Cold temps?--if you consider 65 cold, well, then yes but only at night!  Hustle and bustle?--nope.  The only ones here in a rush are the taxi drivers and I'm sure it's not so they can take care of their last minute shopping.  And the exchange of gifts and cookies?  Well, that's the one place where we can keep our Christmas the same. 

In our home we've set up a fake tree which the neighbors who are in the States this month loaned us.  You can see right through the thing but it was free and does the trick.  We hung on it one string of lights and about 20 ornaments.  I had a roll of pretty ribbon left by the previous home owners so I made a bow and affixed it to the top. Then to make our tree look bigger, we set it on an end table and covered the table with a white sheet--don't know where I'd find a tree skirt anyway.

I was told ahead of time to bring Christmas presents with us, so thankfully we have a few small things under the tree wrapped in paper which I bought in squares of 24 x 18 inches for 30 cents each.  Thankfully the gifts were small or I'd be spending some effort trying to piece together the paper to cover the boxes.  I'm very excited about the kids' gifts because they're each getting one thing that they absolutely love plus some of their favorite candy from the States. 


You know, each year we try to keep the Christmas fan-fare paired down and really focused on the birth of Christ.  I have to say, this year it will be a piece of cake. As far as I can tell, we're not really thinking of much else this season.  I already took the Christmas photo and Doug and I wrote the Christmas letter in November so that my mom could send them out to each of you from the States.   There are no big Christmas parties, no rushing off to the mall, almost no traditions that we feel we have to adhere to for tradition's sake. The only thing that's shown up on our December calendar is the Christmas play, which concluded two days ago, and the ladies' cookie exchange, which is honestly something I'm greatly looking forward to. 

Here's Jacobey as a Bethlehem farmer with his rake:

 Sethy as a Bethlehem man being interviewed by a couple of newswomen:

 Darius, unhappily being interviewed by the same--his character was a crotchety old man:

 Selah as an angel:

 The cast of the play singing "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee":

However we will keep one tradition.  Each year our family makes cookies and such for the neighbors from scratch.  We usually spend an entire day in the kitchen baking and dipping and cutting and rolling.  Then we spend a couple of evenings delivering to all the families near by.  In the past we've gone to up to 38 houses.  This year we only have two families on our compound.  We'll deliver to them but then we'll branch out and visit a number of people throughout Shell.  There's the family from New York that allows us to use their post office box, the family that pastors the church we attend, the ladies that man the fruit stand we frequent, the family that run the town grocery store and the other family that runs their competition.  There's the pharmacist who's rescued us from any number of sicknesses, the family that runs the meat market, the woman who sells us paper goods, and the work crew who faithfully work to build the new bridge that Selah and I will eventually cross daily on our walk to Casa de Fe.  There are other people, but these are who I've considered thus far.  It will be fun bringing some of our Thompson Christmas to Shell.

Ever wonder what Christmas would look like if YOU could decide what your Christmas season looked like?  Something to think about....
Blessings, kim