Stuff Missionaries Like, Christmas Edition

Christmas 1970.

As missionaries, we want to adapt to the (Congolese) culture we're living in, to make our homes comfortable and welcoming to Congolese people.  If we try to re-create our home-country environment and use lots of American stuff, people may not feel as comfortable when they visit.

That said... it is always nice to have some reminders of home.  And that is never more true than during the holidays!!!  A Christmas tree, decorations, special food... stockings... music... bringing a little "merry and bright", a little red and green, a little tinsel and sparkle, into our earth-toned lives, at least for a few weeks.

This is our first Christmas in this house in Bunia.  On Monday (a holiday here, because of national elections), I hauled out our Christmas box and the wire-and-marble tree we got in Nairobi, and started planning.  I quickly realized that our brown-and-olive themed living room with beige African ornaments and batik (also mostly beige) was not going to be transformed into a primary-colored winter wonderland. 

Beige living with box of Xmas stuff

And yet... voila!  Just having the tree decorated and the (Congolese!!! I'm so proud...) nativity scene, complete with aluminum foil star, make me feel all happy inside.  Put a little "Nutcracker Suite"  and "Messiah" on the stereo, and you're in business. A little (American) Christmas. Right this very minute!

But what Christmas is complete without Christmas treats?  (... many of which contain ingredients not indigenous to Congo.)  So we also have brought a few special food prep items from the U.S. and from Uganda: vanilla, red food coloring, molasses (to make brown sugar), colored sprinkles for cookies, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg and cloves.  Somewhere we also have star- and tree-shaped cookie cutters, but they have yet to be located.  We may just have round cookies this year, I think we can live with that.


Last year we wrote about the unfortunate effects of a "white" vision of Christmas.  There's a fine line between enjoying our American Christmas trappings while keeping Jesus firmly in the center of things, and letting the trappings become the message.  Our 6-year-old neighbor came for a visit and was admiring the tree.  I heard Louis, who works for us, explain to him "Ca c'est Christmas".  Not "Noel" in French, but CHRISTMAS, in English.  It gave me pause.  Would our neighbor, whose family is Muslim, think that Christmas is all about shiny things? (... foreigners' things?)  Or would he notice the (relatively small) nativity scene and see that it is about the birth of Jesus?  Guess we'll have to have a talk. And maybe a cookie.