Christmas Away

You can't buy eggnog in the grocery store.*

Just one of the parts about Christmas in St Andrews that is making this year feel quite a bit different than those that have come before. This is the first Christmas that Liana and I have ever been away from home. Ever. For twenty-nine Christmases – and, more particularly, the eight we have had as a married couple – things have been much the same. We've attended the Christmas Eve service at Peace and followed (for the most part) the same rituals with our families over the course of December 24th, 25th, and 26th; driving between Richmond, Vancouver, Ladner, Langley, Abbotsford, White Rock, and occasionally even North Vancouver and Deep Cove to celebrate, exchange gifts, and eat with as many of our friends and family members as possible. We've always counted ourselves blessed to have had the majority of the important people in our lives living within an hour's drive of our front door.

Well, this year is certainly going to be a change.

We plan on attending a Christmas Eve carol service at Holy Trinity Church at 11:20 pm. We will spend Christmas morning together at our flat – just us and a batch of monkey bread – before heading over to spend the rest of the day eating, drinking, and making merry with the Watts family... who live a 10-minute walk away.

That's it. That's all the 'running around' necessary.

I'm sure there will be parts of this Christmas that we will find wonderful. It will certainly be more relaxed, and probably not nearly as tiring. It will be fun to spend this very joyous time of year with new friends, who are quickly becoming very special people to us. But right now... well, right now I feel much more aware of what I will be missing, for example:

• Singing Silent Night by candlelight in the Peace sanctuary
• Eggs Benedict with tomato and avocado at mom & dad's on Christmas morning
• The epic appetizer meal Christmas celebration with the Sportacks
• Whatever wines Gerry chooses to accompany the aforementioned meal
• Seeing what page-a-day calendar mom got me
• Seeing what awesome toy or trinket Laura snuck into my stocking
• Hanging out with the cousins... all of them
• Oma's zweiback
• Oma Pankratz's yams and cabbage rolls
• The orange in my stocking from Grama

All of a sudden I've become very aware that this might be coming across as a bit of a downer of a blog post. Not at all my intention! It's just odd, is all – knowing that none of this will be happening over the next few days. On the other hand, there is so much to look forward to and be thankful for:

• I'm pretty sure Liana and Elissa have been making plans for Christmas dinner for over a month, so chances are it's going to be pretty memorable. There's been a leg of lamb sitting in our freezer for a few weeks, waiting to play the starring role. Mmmmmmm...
• I've been eating more delicious Christmas cookies over the past while than I can count. (Liana. You need to not bake any more of them. They're too good.)
• Laura and Gerry get here in 6 days!!! It will be SO GOOD to have family here. We can't wait!
• We were sent our Sportack and Knickerbocker stockings in the mail, complete with gift-wrapped items to stuff them with. They've been hung (with care, of course... but not by a chimney), and we can't wait to open them!

• God is GOOD and his faithful and steadfast love has been shown to us in so many ways over the past few months. Reaching our first Christmas really does feel like a bit of a milestone. I think I'll save the reflective schmaltz about these first few months for a post in the New Year, but we have really begun to settle in here. God has provided us with a community we are enjoying being a part of, and we are thankful.
• God came to us in Jesus Christ! Emmanuel, God with us! 'The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish' (John 1:14). Alleluia!

We miss you all, friends and family, and wish you the merriest of Christmases. May the JOY of the heavenly hosts at Jesus' birth resound in your hearts this Christmas, and may you go into this new year filled with HOPE and much PEACE: for God is good, and his LOVE endures forever!

*The (very) positive side of the lack of grocery store eggnog is that it resulted in Liana making it here at home. I don't know if you have ever searched for eggnog recipes online, but you can either go the easy (and it seems to me kinda gross) route of mixing together raw eggs with milk, or the more complex and time-consuming route of making what is essentially a creme anglaise (a cooked custard-like sauce) with cream and egg yolks and spices and all kinds of deliciousness (including -- full disclosure -- rum and brandy). One guess which direction she took. YUM.