Dictionary.com: "Anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like."
Our Christmas had two very different sides. I've already described our beautiful, luxurious Christmas Eve on Labadee Beach among the cruise ship passengers. And that was followed by a very traditional Christmas morning for our family, with cinnamon rolls for breakfast ...
And a tree surrounded with presents wrapped in pretty paper...
And stockings filled with candy and surprises ...
And practical gifts ...
And some surprises that were mailed in pre-wrapped by friends and family back home.
(Thanks, Celestia!)
As well as some homemade treasures...
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And even new electronics. (Well, this was it for electronics, and it also qualified as one of the "practical" gifts - Hannah needed a laptop for her online classes here.)
And also a little bit of snow!
And it was all followed by a beautiful baked ham for lunch.
THEN we met up with my "three Haitian sons" and the Heckman family and we hit the road. This was to become the other side of our Christmas.
First stop: The Potter's House. Our friend Jane was out of the country over Christmas itself, but she made sure she left behind some goodies for each child, so Melissa and our kids had added to the goodies and then assembled a gift bag for each orphan. Now it was time to deliver them.
(At the bottom of this post is a video of these precious kids singing "O Holy Night" in Creole. Don't miss it!)
After leaving The Potter's House, it was on to my friend Daniel's neighborhood. With the aid of a gift from a friend back home (shout out to Faith!), we were able to help Daniel put together a Christmas party for a group of kids he has been feeding on a regular basis as he seeks to share the love of Christ in his own neighborhood.
Preparations began on the 23rd when Daniel and Mikenn and I went shopping for the food.
This is Daniel and me in the center of the big open air market in Cap Haitien. Typically, Daniel serves soup. But he told me the kids are always begging him for rice and beans. Our budget would allow for us to serve a special meal of rice and beans and chicken meat to about 50 kids.
Buying the vegetable oil needed to cook the chicken.
And some special treats for each kid.
Daniel's best guess was that about 40 kids might show up on Christmas Day, so Melissa and I had also made 50 star-shaped Christmas cookies for the big day - to go along with a Bible lesson on the Magi following the star to find the baby Jesus.
So when we tracked down Daniel at home Christmas Day and he led us across the street and down a narrow alley to a small courtyard decorated with balloons and toilet paper streamers to find a small crowd of kids dressed in their finest clothes, we were so excited to get started. We were just shy of the 40 kids we were expecting.
As the food was cooking, Johnny led the kids in some singing and telling jokes (I think). It turned out, he was a natural at interacting with these kids, who thoroughly enjoyed performing for each other. The little girl below was belting out a song of some sort!
And then I was up for the Bible lesson. Mikenn translated for me - his first experience at it - and he did a fantastic job (as far as I could tell!).
As all this was going on, kids kept trickling in.
Until they overflowed the benches.
And packed out the courtyard until there was barely room to move about. By Daniel's final count, 101 kids total!
Oops! We scrambled and started to alter plans. First, the Gross and Heckman kids opened the 50 gift bags we had brought and emptied the contents into one bag so every kid could get a small handful of candy.
I broke all our star cookies into thirds.
The Kool-Aid got stretched further, too.
Honestly, we got a bit nervous about how the crowd was going to handle the situation. We had heard of things like this getting nasty when supplies ran out, so we helped hand out the food and then we left while the kids were finishing up their meals - two hours after our arrival - before the candy and gifts were divvied up. It just felt a little safer to get our families out of that claustrophobic courtyard before anything ran out.
In the end, though, there seemed to be enough rice and beans and chicken to serve a heaping plateful to each kid. (Maybe it got multiplied!)
And upon reflection after the fact, I'm not sure there was any need for us to fear the reaction to limits on Kool-Aid or candy or gift bags.
Because these kids didn't come for Christmas presents - they came for a meal.
And that's why I was left with a bad case of cognitive dissonance:
It's easy to think of being at Labadee Beach as a luxury. But by Christmas night, I was struck by the fact that what we called a commonplace Christmas morning at home (and one even quite subdued by American standards) was incredibly LUXURIOUS compared to the experience of the vast majority of families outside our four walls (and around the world, I might add).
Some people point to the frankincense, gold and myrrh brought by the wise men as the origin of gift-giving traditions at Christmas. But how do we justify our extravagant purchases of chocolate and plastic and electronics to be given to those inside our little circles of loved ones by pointing to men who spared no expense of time, comfort or funds, to find the baby Jesus? And who, upon finding him, sacrificed great wealth to Him and then worshipped Him?
Don't get me wrong. Giving gifts to loved ones to express our appreciation of them is a wonderful thing. But, regardless of whether it's in moderation or over the top, it doesn't strike me as an adequate way to "celebrate Christmas".
Wouldn't our celebration of Christ's birth be more honoring to Jesus if it centered on obeying what He grew up to teach?
"Whatever you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto Me."
"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Every year we hear a lot of Christians who protest the "war on Christmas" and whose slogan is "Let's keep Christ in Christmas". But maybe we're telling the wrong people. It's not the retailers' or the schools' or the government's job to keep Christ in Christmas. It's OURS. And if WE keep Christ in Christmas - really keep Him - the world WILL take notice.
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