Christmas Day

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest Man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenward by Thine eternal plan.

Christmas this year was different—we were in a new place, and were celebrating for the first time without any other Molitors or Huntleys. Of course we missed our families. But we had a wonderful Christmas. As I stood in front of the single kitchen window washing dishes on Christmas morning, feeling the sunlight pour in on my arms and listening to Fernando Ortega’s Christmas album on the Ipod, I couldn’t help but be filled with joy. The thought of God loving us so much that He would become one of us is too wonderful for words, and remembering that reality was really the brightest spot of the day.

The morning started out just right, with two bouncy little boys joining us in our bed (they wake up so early here!) to snuggle.

I tried to make pancakes with Christmas cookie cutters to shape them in fun ways, but they just turned out pretty much like normal pancakes—roundish blobs. They tasted nice anyways. The boys opened presents, and John even squealed in delight when he saw the truck Adam had bought for him. Here is Sam in his new Golden Gophers jersey from Grandma talking on his cell phone to Grandmama (“Hello, Grandmama, hello!”)

The real excitement of the day came a little later in the morning. John was playing with his truck on the porch when a boy we don’t know came up to the porch and greeted us all. He hung around on the periphery of the porch until Adam went inside. Suddenly I heard Adam exclaim from inside the house, then watched him zip out the door and run past me at the speed of lightning! The boy was making off with John’s truck, but Adam was gaining on him. The chase didn’t last long, as the boy threw the truck to the side of the path and disappeared into the neighborhood. Watching a high-speed chase was exciting, but of course it was really sad to see such a young boy with his heart bent on stealing.

the beautiful sunset view from our front porch

the boys early Christmas morning

enjoying Christmas dinner together

talking to Grandmama on the toy phone

Later in the afternoon we ate dinner with the Zubots and Kathleen. Since Kathleen, Esther and I had all bought potatoes the day before, we had tons of potatoes for the meal. Esther and I had also bought green beans on Christmas Eve, so we cooked up a lot of those too. (In case you’re wondering, we didn’t actually plan the meal until Christmas Day). Adam went into town to search for some meat, and came home with a huge delicious chunk of hot, fire-smoked beef he had bought in town from some Muslim meat-sellers (most other people here wouldn’t be working on Christmas Sunday). With all that, plus an Austrian type of cake that Esther had baked in a bundt pan inside a pot over the fire, we had quite the feast.