I'm dreaming of a White Christmas, but now that we're in our sixth African December, I'm finally coming to terms with the reality of a Green Christmas.
What do I miss about American Christmases? Let's start with the leaves changing colors at Thanksgiving. We don't experience that here in any form, and somehow those leaves in America set the stage for the glory of the Christmas season in all its change. I kind of envy our Australian friends here who at least see nothing different in the climate here from the climate of their home Christmas. The picture below was taken on Christmas morning 2007 - Tessa put on her new dress and went out gardening, so you can see the type of weather we were having.
I miss my family and celebrating our traditions with them mostly - the less said about that the better, but also I miss seeing my breath in Colorado on a snowy or cold day and the breathtaking lights on the trees and houses of Dallas and the decorations in every home. Where does one hang stockings when there is no fireplace, and how does Santa get into the house with no chimney? We try to answer those questions every year.
I miss the holiday parties and gatherings. I miss the many scents of American Christmas - the pine of the tree, cranberry, apple cider, flavored coffee, fire in a fireplace, and turkey in the oven. And of course I miss the flavors of Christmas even if my hips don't! I miss the music in every store and home even though I have Christmas music here. I miss the choir concerts and singing carols and Christmas hymns with the congregation on Sunday mornings as there are no Christmas Swahili songs in churches here. The below picture was taken at a Christmas office party in Nairobi in 2006 as we were there waiting for Jack to be born. Tessa was not happy to see this friendly Santa!
In spite of all these things, there are many reasons to enjoy Christmas in Tanzania. For one, no one is marketing toys to our children or to us. It's much easier to celebrate simply without all the merchandising and temptation to spend unreasonably. Our kids can run outside without any thought to what they're wearing - no need to bundle them in mittens, hats, scarves, socks and boots only to have to dry those things when they return.
Our poinsettia and amaryllis bloom all year around in our garden. We sing hymns on our back porch every Sunday night, so during December we sing Christmas hymns. We decorate the house with a very fake and tiny tree we bought in Nairobi and hang small carved gourds on it. We've even found pine cones at the convent up the trail from our house, and the gardener there lets me collect them although he must think I'm quite odd. I've never seen pine trees anywhere else here. And our neighbor has a juniper tree, so I trim some of the branches to make an Advent wreath. The Jesse Tree and it's stories from the Old Testament and New Testament have brought a special emphasis on the history of Christ into our house in the last two years.
Below is a picture of our tree on Christmas Eve in 2009 after Santa had come (assisted by many care packages from the kids' grandparents). Looking at the bounty made us feel a bit appalled when we considered how few other homes here have any gifts at all on Christmas morning.
I'm dreaming of a green Christmas
Just like the ones I never knew.
Where the mongeese chatter
And pumpkin matter
Is cooked into pumpkin stew.
I'm dreaming of a green Christmas
Looking at Lake Vic through the screen.
May your joyful spirit be seen
And may all your Christmases be green.
From our cheery green home to your white one,
Kim
January - the typical excitement over opening a care package! 
February - we're always trying to get decent family shots for the prayer updates and newsletters. This one is in our backyard.
March - Making Tessa's 5th birthday cake together
April - The kids love dying and decorating Easter eggs. This year we had letter stickers from a care package that worked nicely.
May - Mother's Day gifts that Dusty bought on a trip to Dar included Caesar salad dressing, a citronella candle, beet seeds, and pesto in a jar.
June - The Tanzanians and missionaries from our project came together by (ironically) playing each other in a "World Cup" soccer match, and everyone had a great time and felt more unified as a result. Since then we've had several more games with mixed teams.
July - Annual family photograph session on the Kenyan coast at our branch conference. Sometimes the best photo follows the silliest.
August - Tessa gets involved at the literacy workshop.
September - Dusty's birthday, hamming it up.
October - dressed up for the wedding of one of the translators, Shem.
November - mini-vacation at the Rondo Retreat in the Kakamega Rain Forest in Kenya. We let Tessa use our big and heavy camera to finally get a picture of the two of us together. She did a pretty good job!
December - Jack turned 4 on December 23rd, but we celebrated with a party on the Saturday beforehand. He loved his dinosaur cake, pin the tail on the donkey, pass the parcel, and musical chairs. On the 26th he said, "Now I'm almost five!"
