Where are you Christmas?

Celebrating the holiday season in Turkey is an interesting experience.  I think we all take for granted that most of us live in a place where Christmas is celebrated.  December means lights on houses, carols on the radio, nativity scenes, and Christmas trees.  You won't find any of that here.  It is surreal for me to go off base in the middle of December and see no trace of Christmas.  I guess I knew it would be this way, but now I am experiencing it first-hand.

So, we are traveling over Christmas.  To be honest, I am not entirely comfortable with the idea.  We will be in Istanbul at a hotel on Christmas morning.  While I am excited to see what I have heard is an amazing city with our good friends, something will definitely be missing.  So in the week before we leave, I am filling our little home with as much Christmas as I can-yummy cookies, Christmas music, a decorated tree, and lots of stories about Baby Jesus for W.  It may be unorthodox, but our hearts are in the right place-and I think that is all that really matters to our Savior.