Second Christmas

For Second Christmas Eve we ate the traditional kutya, and the next day we got the traditional (since my childhood!) photo of the kids with Jesus' birthday cake.

On Second Christmas Day we went to church, but that was about all, because Jaan and Raia stayed there the whole rest of the day, getting ready for the children's Christmas program, which would be the next day. And so, the day after Christmas was the children's Christmas program. You can see the video clip about it that we saw at church today here. They had 40 kids signed up, so they prepared for 50, and more than 100 came! Kids with special needs and their parents were specially invited, and Asya led one of their groups through all the stations. Other new guests were children from the conflict zone, especially those who have lost family members. Raia led some of those groups, and some of our own church and neighborhood kids. Jaan spent the whole time in the shadow theater; they did that presentation eleven or twelve times.

When Jaan finally got home that evening, he was the last to arrive, and we didn't even give him time to eat or rest. We went right out on our round of caroling; our neighbors were waiting! Bogdan played his bandura in every home, and we all sang a few songs. Then when we got back to our own house, we sang for our neighbor family here. They invited us in for tea, fed Jaan dinner, and then we sat talking until very late into the night. Even after living together for 7 years, that was a first for us. We just lost track of time and talked on and on into the night. It was really a wonderful time.

(Babushka O. watched with hands clasped and eyes sparkling, until I tried to take a photo.)

Christmas still trickles on until "the third holiday," the Baptism of Christ, next week. Over the past week Bogdan and Will went to a residential hospital with Agape to sing and play for the kids there, and Jaan got to help present the shadow theater show another time in a preschool. We've been back to our school schedule, though, and we're slowing moving from holiday life on into regular life.