This Christmas is hopefully our last Christmas in the States for a couple years and because of this we have found it difficult to avoid having too high expectations. We want everything to be just right and we want to make many wonderful memories that we can recall when we're celebrating Christmas in Mexico. Amidst these great desires to make lasting memories and to spend quality time with family is a deep desire to focus on what Christmas is truly about. We have found in our experience that everything we surround Christmas with can be very distracting. We can easily make gift giving, being with family, going to parties, and holiday traditions the center of our celebrations, but being in the unique position of leaving the country and Christmas as we have known it we are reexamining what Christmas is and will be for us.
Just like you, we don't want to make presents the focus of Christmas, and we won't be able to be with family, go to our friends parties (although we will have new friends... hopefully :) ), or maintain some of our traditions. So Christmas will undoubtedly be different. What we have come to realize this year more than ever is that Christmas goes on without these treasured things because Christmas is only about Christ and nothing more. We will dearly miss our loved ones, but Christmas is not about being with others; it's about God being with us (Emmanuel). So as we face changing cultures and the changing of Christmas, God has used this time to help us refocus on Him and what it means to truly celebrate the birth of His Son. May God richly bless you this Christmas and may Christ enter our hearts anew as we celebrate the things he has done, is doing, and the good things yet to come.
(picture from Leon in 2006)
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