An Unusual Christmas

This Christmas in Tarakan was a little more difficult for me (Ellie) than our first Christmas in Indonesia when we lived in Salatiga. Maybe part of it was because it is significantly hotter here, which made it pretty much impossible to get the “feel” of home this time of year, or maybe it was because we’ve been here for a year and a half now and settling into our home in Tarakan has given it a more permanent feel, but either way at times I found myself more homesick than usual. We decorated the house and put up the tree, and the kids and I even made a ginger bread house. It was definitely a challenge with the intense heat, trying to get the candy to stick, but we had a great time. I held a Christmas cookie exchange with some of the other MAF wives one night and we had a blast chatting and eating the peppermint ice cream that Matt made! He was our hero that night ;).

Christmas day was the same in some ways and extremely different in others. We spent Christmas morning opening gifts with the kids and then prepared to open our house up for our neighbors to come visit, a tradition that is very common here among both Christians and Muslims (the same is done for “Idul Fitri,” the big Muslim holiday). We really didn’t know what to expect. I handed out invitations that indicated a certain time that would be good to visit, we prepared tons of snack type foods, cookies, and cider, and then we waited. Towards the end of the indicated time, our neighbors across the street showed up. We welcomed them in and served some cider (which they loved!) and unsuccessfully tried to get them to eat more of the food. Then we attempted to carry a conversation, which included several awkward silences and me fumbling through the language, making several mistakes and causing quite a bit of laughter. One more family showed up at that point. They surprised us when they pulled out gifts for the kids! After about 20 minutes or so, everyone left….and no one else came. We had an entire table full of leftover snack food that we had no idea what to do with. We figured that everyone was too busy and that no one else would come, so we closed up the house and went upstairs to spend time as a family. Later we heard that three other families came much later….oops!

I’m going to try to explain my feelings after a day like this, but unless you live here day to day it might be difficult to understand. To say that we felt out of our comfort zone would be a major understatement. I was already struggling with homesickness. Then to spend part of such an important day of the year, a day that is filled with so many memories of the past, in this particular way succeeded to make me feel very, very far from home. We had tried to skype with my family back home, who were all together spending Christmas the exact way I remember, but the connection was poor and we were cut off. Inviting neighbors over any of the other 364 days of the year would probably not have caused such feelings…..but I couldn’t suppress the selfish feelings that I wanted to keep Christmas to ourselves….to feel as “at home” as possible and completely within our comfort zone. Looking back, it seemed that had we kept the day to ourselves, no one really would have cared and it wasn’t as important culturally as we thought it was, but in actuality the invitations had opened up a door a to some deeper friendships here.

So will we do it again next year? Mabye. I can’t say this far in advance how we will feel at that point, but at least we will know more of what to expect culturally next time.


PS: To those of you who sent packages (you know who you are), we can't thank you enough....receiving loving cards, pictures, and all kinds of gifts and treats was so encouraging and reminded us of the love and support of so many people back home. Thank you!

Here is the spread we had for our neighbors....almost all of it was left over!

Sweet time with dad on Christmas morning

Callie with her new Rapunzel doll



Eva wearing her new pretty dress....such a personality! 

 

 

 

 

Our little mad scientist, Blake. A family from our home church in the states generously sent a package full of gifts, and one of them included a little archeologist kit. Blake wore these glasses while he dug for dinosaur bones. He had so much fun!

 Such a goofball.

One of our neighbors that visited on Christmas mentioned that she wanted me to teach her how to make pizza. This is us making pizzas together last Sunday afternoon. She was so excited!