What we could never have known a year ago on Christmas Eve: that this year there would be a sleeping baby next to his siblings' stockings. We marveled at this scene that night, having just arrived from another Chilean Christmas Eve (see last year's post) to place presents under the tree and packages into the stockings that state each child's name. Baby Silas did not have a stocking and we chuckled at the difference time and age makes in our parenting. Surely with the others it seemed most urgent that they have this defining element of Christmas, but we realize now that he will not miss what he does not yet know. Instead he was our brightly wrapped gift this year!
Christmas Eve was a sweet time of sharing a meal of turkey, choripan and an array of delicious salads with our friend Catalina and the Bordones and Ruz families from church. It was a different Christmas for all of us. None of us had family nearby with whom to celebrate. Yet as brothers and sisters in Christ, we made up our own "family" for the holiday! Thanks to another brother and sister in Christ (the Kay family on vacation at the time) we were loaned a beautiful home overlooking the ocean at which to gather and enjoy one another's company. At midnight, the children exchanged gifts with each other and shortly afterwards we all headed home.
We made short work of sending our five excited big kids to bed, setting up for the morning to come. This picture was taken at that quiet time of night, a moment of reflection on the amazing and beautiful changes God had brought to our family this year.
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