Love-Hate Relationship

I have decided this week that I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas in this country. I love that we celebrate Christmas in this country - there are friends of ours who live in Thailand where they don't even give Christmas Day as a holiday. I love that it still has the birth of Jesus at its core. I love that Filipinos love Christmas and that is seen in the decorations, the music, the atmosphere. However, I hate the extra traffic, the extra people in the malls (where are they the rest of the year?!), the association of Christmas with "give me money", the carol singers who come every night. (One Tagalog word we know very well is 'Patawad'! which sends them away.)

We had a much calmer day with the kids today, though, so that was a relief. Rose and I spent a lot of one on one time this morning making a face for her bedroom door, playing "Go Fish" and then she played on Steve's computer while I sewed.