Future Plans and Christmas

I placed my order for my flights home this next summer this week. I don't have confirmation yet but I should be in the States from April 30th to June 4th this next summer. It's hard to believe that I'll be home in a little over 4 months. Speaking of which, one of my co-workers suggested that I get a suit tailored for my brother's wedding. I just chuckled at them and told them I didn't want to dress better than the groom at his own wedding. That's just tacky and inconsiderate. I am still considering having the suit made anyway and just not wearing the jacket to the wedding.

I had my first moment of it actually feeling like a real Christmas season this week. A bunch of us went to Dhaka this week as there as a national holiday (victory day, their version of independence day) and we had a big cookie baking day at the Miller's house. The massive volume of cookies reminded me of the lead up to Christmas back at home. The best moment was not the baking though. The best moment was when we had a regular meal with a huge plate of cookies as the center piece of the table. That image hit me hard as one I have extremely strong memories of family and love. Times spent at Aunt Susan's, the Birkey Christmas get togethers, at the Bond's house, and with company over at my parents place came flooding back to me. I can talk about how comfortable I am with the fact that I'm here all I want but I'd be a fool to not miss those times. To be frank, I could be ok with doing away with Christmas gifts, but never in a million years would I give away those times together with family and friends (side note to family and friends, I do realize that I don't do a good job of showing this when I don't manage to send you Christmas cards).

I don't remember if I've mentioned on here or not that a group of us international people living in Bogra have started a home church. One of the things we discussed this week (as an aside to the message) was our different traditions. My favorite one was that in South Korea they have a Christmas Eve service that ends with them going around to peoples doorsteps at 2 am singing. Could you imagine someone showing up at your doorstep at 2am on Christmas to sing to you? Though I guess some of my readers are probably old enough that they are up at 2am for one of their many nightly bathroom breaks, so it might not be so much of an out of the way thing for them. :-)