Christmas Caroling
Merry Christmas!
We hope you are had a blessed day celebrating our Savior’s birth!
Our family had a small celebration Christmas morning before we opened the doors to the outside world. The church here will have a big Christmas outreach this coming Sunday. Most of the group celebrating that we took part in came last night with the First (and hopefully not last, but maybe last because it ended kind of late) Annual New Life Church of Wiang Kaen Christmas Caroling Party!
The preparations started over two weeks ago as our current interim pastor announced to the church at a Sunday morning service that we’d be starting the caroling party at the Gatzke’s house, because we’d be sure to have the most delicious cookies. I was feeling a little pressure from the announcement so I made some plans as to how I would get all my baking done. I had a list of what needed to be purchased and when all the treats would be made. Unfortunately I made the mistake of ignoring my schedule of when things would be made (before the day of the party) and ended up spending quite a long time in the kitchen on Christmas Eve Day. It wasn’t exactly what I had pictured, a fun day of making cookies with the family, letting the boys frost and put sprinkles on cookies. I herded everyone out of the kitchen after breakfast and frosted most of the cookies while the boys were napping. There was only one way to get it all done, focusing on the task at hand with 100% of my attention.
In planning what treats to make for the event, consisting of church members stopping by our house to sing songs and then have some snacks together, I tried to consider what I thought our Thai friends would like. We are forever hearing comments about how our food is so sweet, it’s so rich, and so on. We ended up making brownies, toffee, frosted sugar cookies and butter pecan cookies. Along with 12 liters of Coke, I figured we had enough food to suit the crowd and way more sugar than most of our Thai friends claimed to be able to digest without ballooning up two pants sizes.
At about 8pm our carolers showed up. They looked quite eager and I looked at our buffet table, wondering if they’d actually like what we had. Maybe I should have purchased that huge bag of shrimp chips or fried up some crickets, it was too late, I had to hope that they’d at least try some of what we made. To my surprise they descended onto our table with much more enthusiasm than I expected. The container of extra cookies had to be relocated from the kitchen to the main table where it was devoured in minutes. As it turned out, the Christmas goodies we made yesterday, over 200 cookies and such, was almost COMPLETELY cleared out in a span of 30 minutes by only 30 people! I couldn't believe it! I thought I'd have leftovers for us to munch on for a week or so. I remember thinking to myself, “it’s too bad that I have to spend most of the day in the kitchen, but at least I’ll get all my Christmas baking done in one day...” As it turns out I'm going to have to do another baking day so the boys will have something more than a fleeting memory of eating Christmas treats. It was a blessing though, to be able to make something and see people enjoy it so much.
After the stop at our house we all piled in 3 vehicles (2 trucks and our van) to head up the mountain to the house of one of our Christian friends. He lives in a small Chinese town called Pha Tang. We stood outside his simple little house in the dark quiet of the night and sang “Joy to the World”, in Thai of course. Our candles flickered in the cool evening air and what a joy it was to do something so simple and yet so wonderful, to celebrate our Savior’s birth at the home of a believer whom Jeremy has been discipling for the past 3 years. Our friend opened his doors and welcomed us in to enjoy another round of snacks and soda. As we left, he pointed out that the cherry tree outside his house was in full bloom and he invited those of us who desired to cut off a branch to bring home. What a simple gift to us, but what beauty those soft pink blossoms bring to our table.
This year we praise the Lord for the many blessings He bestows on us and even moreso the greatest blessing that could ever be given, God’s only Son, our Jesus.
