Traditions

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...We have been listening to Christmas music now for two weeks and this song is one of our favorites. The key word for us here is like. Celebrating Christmas in Phnom Penh has been different for many reasons, the weather doesn't drop below 85 degrees, we are away from family and friends, and mostly because 95% of population is Buddhist and doesn't celebrate the birth of Jesus. Because of the high NGO and foreigner population many stores do have trees out, hotels have put up lights, and restaurants are selling fudge, peppermint hot chocolate, and traditional turkey dinners (all of which you can get if you are willing to fork out the cash for it), but the majority of the Khmer people have no idea about the meaning behind Christmas. What is refreshing is while we celebrate with those on our staff, those we partner with, and other Khmer Christians the fluff of Christmas is somewhat forgotten and the true meaning of Christmas is brought back. Though we do find that encouraging, we do still miss the malls filled with huge trees, the red cups at Starbucks, and the delicious finger food that is at every holiday party.

Which has gotten me to think about all the traditions that we have grown to love over the years with our families. I think about my favorite Christmas traditions like lighting lumanarios, going to Hoffmantown, eating pesole, and playing our nativity game on Christmas Eve. Then Chris tells stories of watching White Christmas, having his grandpa pass out all the gifts to the kids, and eating pititsa on Christmas morning. I think about the traditions that we want to take from our families and continue on, and what traditions we want to create ourselves. This will be our 3rd Christmas together since being married and we will have been in Pueblo, CO, Albuquerque, NM and now Phnom Penh making traditions somewhat hard to maintain each year, but does create unique opportunities to make new traditions . We have been encouraged by others that have been living here for many years to try to make our traditions from home happen while living in Cambodia. Now that takes a lot of work, but I can already tell that the MANY trips I have made to the market will be worth it on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. However, we do look forward to the time of having roots somewhere and establishing our own traditions even more.

As for this year, the past few weeks in Phnom Penh have been a wonderful blessing of many Christmas-ey type of things. A few weekends back we went to a Christmas fair at one of the fancy hotels, and then hosted a 20 person party where we decorated sugar cookies, baked pecan pies, and put up our little tree. This weekend we went to our staff Christmas party where we played in a hilarious game of White Elephant and enjoyed a dinner complete with chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, and even Mexican food! Then last night we went and got holiday lattes and walked around a boutique filled street that had every store lit up and playing Christmas music in the streets, it almost felt like a shopping mall in the States (well kinda...) Not to mention all the Christmas movies we watch and attending both the Logos Elementary Christmas concert and then the HS concert on the 18th. We are thankful for a wonderful Christmas season, and are now counting down the days until my mom arrives here next Friday!