Some of you may remember from my blog last year that I get to celebrate Christmas twice in Ethiopia. Ethiopian’s have a different calendar which consists of 13 months. They still have 365 days, however, they have broken that down into 13 months. Ethiopian Christmas falls on January 7th in the Gregorian calendar (“our” calendar as North Americans).
Mussie and I wanted to celebrate both Christmases together and with the children. But we really weren’t sure how to do that. We want them to know both cultures. I started thinking about how we could introduce “American Christmas” to them and what parts to take and what parts to leave out. Honestly, it took me a long time to figure out what about the way that Americans celebrate Christmas I wanted to introduce to my children. There is much about American Christmas that disgusts me. A lot of it I think is fun and harmless but why would I introduce certain traditions to my kids and skew their perception of Christmas if it isn’t necessary?
The way most Ethiopians celebrate Christmas is so pure and true and they celebrate for all of the right reasons. They may give and receive small presents but it is not the focus of their celebrations. So I wanted to be really careful to not “corrupt” them with silly traditions that mean nothing.
After much, much, much thinking I realized one of the biggest things that I love about Americans during Christmas is their generosity. This is the time of year that so many Americans give to others. Christians and non-Christians get involved with giving. I realized that I could teach them about compassion and generosity-about giving to those in need.
So Mussie and I decided to give them a certain about of money and we told them about two families that needed help. They (okay, this was really all Fiker because Rebirra wasn’t understanding what was happening) were able to bless one of the families with all of the money or they could have split it up amongst both families. Fiker decided that both families needed help.
We took them shopping and got clothes, shoes, and food. Fiker said it felt really good to be able to help others. She seemed kind of surprised that people around her-friends at school, even-lived in such dire situations.
One of the families the kids helped.
We also decided to give them stockings for American Christmas with candy and small, small gifts. We also went to spend the day in a neighboring town with friends. I have no pictures of that. I had been suffering from insomnia right before that and I hadn’t slept in two days so I really was no fun that day. I just wanted to sleep. But I do remember that we had amazing food!
When it came to Ethiopian Christmas I also wanted to make sure that I don’t corrupt them and foster a sense of entitlement and great expectations for every forth-coming Christmas. It is so easy for me to go overboard with presents because I think they are cute. Let’s get something straight-God has blessed our family and my kids do not need anything. They have way too much. But we did want to give them some presents for Christmas. Mussie and I decided that we would give them each 3 presents. Jesus was brought 3 presents when he was born so we figured if it is good enough for Jesus then it’s good enough for our kids. But we decided to get them 3 normal presents-not 3 over the top presents.
But as usual with Christmas, one of Rebirra’s presents was more pricey then we had intended for it to be. My mom got Fiker a scooter for Christmas so we wanted to get Rebirra a riding toy as well so we can go around the neighborhood together and get exercise.
We gave Fiker: Connect 4x4, pjs, a jump rope.
We gave Rebirra: A matching game, pjs, and a tricycle.
We are really going to try to keep these traditions going. I especially want to keep the “helping others” tradition going for American Christmas.
Sometimes it’s not easy incorporating two cultures into everything but we try to figure it out as we go along.
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