$4.00 ChristmasTree

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your fake, little green branches. Here in South Africa there is no such thing as a "real, live, Christmas tree". I was so sad when my mom went from fresh pine to fake pine. Even though I understood her reasoning and came to accept it, I vowed never to go the way of the fake pine. Well, never say never. This Christmas season there has been a lot of adjusting. First off, the fake pine....that has been tough. Second, it is like 100 degrees out here and it appears that Tony and I will be spending our Christmas day in bathing suites squirting each other with the hose. We are banking on a big thunderstorm Christmas day. Even though it will be warm at least we will have some rain and we can pretend it is cold. Lastly, we are missing our family and friends. This is the first Christmas away from our families and it has been difficult. Tony and I do have some stockings to fill and we hope to make a home-made mexican dinner. It will be cool to begin our own traditions and be able to visit some friends out in the township on Christmas day. Tony and I are still adjusting to life over here, but find that day by day we are more settled and day by day we are more in a rhythm. We have a lot of work to do to prepare for the new Nieu Communities Group that will be here the first part of Feb. Tony and I are starting to submerge in the culture more and are building new relationships. We are trying to be more intentional with engaging in things that give us life and not things that we just "have to do" to get settled. We do feel like we are making some good steps and that we have worked well through the transition over here. Well, Merry Christmas! We will be in touch again soon.