Last Christmas I gave you my heart. The very next day you.... haha, just kidding.
I spent last Christmas eve caroling on the Judean hills overlooking Bethlehem, about where the shepherds might have been chillin' when the angels appeared in the sky and sang a heavenly joyful chorus about Jesus' birth. It was beyond magical. It brought me to tears. Click here to read about it.
Then on Christmas day, I went over to Jalene and Daniel's house and we enjoyed an amazing dinner of raclettes (a meal kind of like fondue, but cooking things on a hot stone rather than in broth) and then opened gifts to each other. I have that post in my blog drafts, but I never got around to posting it.
This year, to save me from tears.... heh! Couldn't resist...
I've been in Michigan this year spending time with my husband's side of the family, which has been so lovely. Smaller families--er, I mean, regular-sized families--make for more individual attention, which I'm not used to, so I feel like a glutton for it. Okay, I'm making it sound like I got a ton of individual attention, but really, I just got some attention... but compared to my own family... Try living in a family with 8 siblings, and now when we somehow make it all together it's around 20-27 people (that's just my parents, my siblings, and their spouses and kids). I often (mistakenly) feel like background noise, even though truthfully I get a lot of love.
I got gifts from aunts and uncles and grandparents-in-law this year--extended family--which I am also not used to. My own immediate family moved to America from Canada when I was six. I never got to know my cousins very well, never spent much time with my grandparents who are now gone, and hardly saw my aunts and uncles. And then I moved to Israel, so I don't have the ability to go visit them all. And even though I've spent the holidays with my in-law family for the past few years, this year is the first time I have felt like an insider.
Before, I was just getting used to the customs, the dynamics, taking cues from Dustin on how to act and respond to the humor, and generally dealing with the awkwardness of being new... By now, which is only a few years, family members are making dishes just for me, knowing what I like, and even Dustin's dad got four chairs for his living room--for him, his two sons, and for me! (at least that's what I tell myself. Haha! But it's what I feel). And at this stage, I am experiencing a whirlwind of emotions. After some of our get-togethers this week, I rode home feeling strange feelings--both joy and sorrow--that make me want to go out into the woods to process what on earth is going on with me...
But I think I know. It's the kind of sorrow that comes from a heart realizing it is recieving what it never knew it wanted or even needed. It is a heart healing from certain wounds it didn't know it had. And though I won't express the deeper things too personal, I will say that my heart is so full.
Don't you ever underestimate what love does to people. Simple gestures even. You never know what it can mean.
