Merry Christmas

Last year we had an extensive post about what a typical Czech Christmas looks like, so this year I'm not going to say much about it in fear of being repetative. However I would like to share with you what the month of December has felt like.

The first two weeks of the month were as usual: classes, meetings, and preparing for the upcoming events (Pokec, Christmas play, and the living nativity). However, it didn't really feel like Christmas was approaching. Then it started to snow :) It is really unbelievable how different a little snow can make a place feel. All of a sudden it looked like Decemeber, however, this did not mean Christmas; only that our family would be arriving soon.

Once I learned that our family would be coming to visit I made a countdown chain. Seventy-six days marked the start of the chain, but once it got into December it had gotten much shorter. December first marked day 26 until the arrival of my mom and day 30 for when Jeremy's mom and brother would arrive. Two weeks later, at a one of my English class Christmas parties, someone mentioned that there were only 8 days until Christmas. I was surprised, only 8 days?! But then I remembered that there were only 10 days until my mom would be here, so it made sense.

December 20th (Sunday) we got our Christmas tree, and this is when it felt like Christmas was near. Jeremy carried it home and nailed a stand on the bottom and there it was, our christmas tree. Of course I couldn't wait to decorate it, even though we had to clean our house. So while Jeremy was cleaning the hall and bathroom (and thinking I was cleaning the kitchen and living room...) I joyfully decorated our tree.

It's funny how happy this little tree makes me. I don't really care about the presents that are under it, only the memories it brings. Looking at it now I remember every Christmas eve waiting for our tradition to start (I suppose part of the tradition was the waiting itself.) After lunch we would take a shower and get ready for church. On the way to church we would listen to Christmas songs on the radio and look at the the lights on the houses we pasted. This was a special night for me, not only because we celebrated the birth of Jesus, but because it was a time when my whole family would go to church together-- this of course caused some minor conflicts regarding who got to sit next to Dad. After church we would go to my grandparents house for dinner. This was a fun time because all my cousins and aunts and uncles from my mom's side of the family would be there. We kids would eat our dinners as fast as we could so we could open presents, however we would always have to wait for the "grown-ups" to have coffee and a little chat with each other. My grandfather was notorious for giving us little tasks to make us wait longer (like telling us to stand on our head and spit wooden nickels...whatever that meant). And after rearranging my grandma's ceramic NOEL several times(LEON,NOLE,LONE)and pestering our parents to death, we could finally open our presents.

Christmas day (December 25) was what every kids waited for. We would wake our parents up at 6am and drag them downstairs to open presents (of course when my bother and I were older, it was our parents who woke us up at 9 or 10). This summer I watched some old home videos from Christmas and it's so funny how excited we were about all the presents. There is one video where my brother is standing by the tree with big eyes whispering "wow" over and over again. After opening our presents, eating breakfast and putting our nice clothing back on, we would go to see my Dad's side of the family. Each year Christmas was at a different house, but everyone was there so it didn't matter. I rememeber really liking Christmas at my cousins Matthew and Jonathan's house because there was a big playroom downstairs away from the grownups where we could do whatever we wanted.

So for me Christmas ment seeing my whole family within two days, which is probably one of the reasons that we are looking forward to seeing our moms so much.