yuletide

This Christmas has felt a little...uncomfortable? Like, homemade gifts but somehow Tan and I aren’t giving each other anything. There’s so much sentiment in every moment and lingering fatigue always lining it. Inadequacy feels like the demon dogging every step.

That inadequacy makes my culture clash with my faith. Americans are adequate. We’re the best, the most independent, the most self-sufficient. And yet God wants me to be dependent on His strength, because the job He has for me is not able to be completed with human ability. I wonder if the constant awareness of inadequacy is a blessing or a curse.

So I guess we move forward into the New Year, we keep trusting, and we keep knowing God’s way will be the way.

Pictures from Town

 

(J with a skull on a stick)

 

(Sunrise in town)

 

(The real Christmas tree)

(My small sparkler contribution to the fireworks) 

The Goose Is Getting Fat

As Christmas comes closer and we relocate to town for the holiday, I find myself wishing it felt more like Christmas.  There is something distinctly non traditional about waiting for one last helicopter flight on an open porch through spats of chilly rain. Of course, we're looking for Christmas cookie recipes, discussing different egg replacements, planning where we'll put the tree, and maybe I'll feel more like celebrating once we start those activities. If only that dang helicopter would get here.

Of course, this feeling eventually dissolves into a "Vivian-get-yourself-together-remember-what-Christmas-is-really-about" mood.

My Instagram loaded for the first time in a while, because usually won't load my friends' posts even though I can post, and I was amazed to see snow.  It's all fairy lights, and Santas, and Nutcrackers, and cookies, and trees, and I don't even miss it. I don't feel like anyone should be doing those things. It isn't time!  Except that it is.

So, bah humbug and Merry Christmas!  Feeling the season or not, I'm the happiest I've been in a long time, and I'm thankful enough for that.