Christmas Travel

Many of us are traveling for the holidays. Some are going home and others are going away.  We are traveling in the opposite direction from home, for a break that might be considered "skipping Christmas".  I know there is some appeal to the avoidance of shopping, baking and decorating.  We just needed a rest.

This is not the first time Jon and I have taken advantage of the school holidays to get away. During our first Christmas break after getting married we traveled around Argentina and Chile. In those days we just went, with not much of a plan and no reservations. After a long, dusty train ride across the pampas, we arrived on Christmas Day in a picturesque resort town in the Andes mountains.  All the nice hotels were booked up and we had nowhere to stay. Someone finally directed us to a camp site outside of town.  Fortunately we did have a tent and sleeping bags with us, so that is where we headed. It was a cold night on the hard ground. I'm not sure what we did for food, but I am certain there was no restaurant serving hot food nearby.

The next December we took advantage of being in Southern Europe and decided to spend Christmas touring Egypt. I was pregnant, expecting my first son. Probably not the best time to travel to a country where everyone chain smokes and locally cooked food is suspect. I spent most of my time feeling sick.  There were times when I had to sit out and let the tour go on without me.
The only evidence of the season were a few strands of tinsel hung in the greasy window of a KFC.  The taxi drivers and vendors were quite aggressive.  All, in all, apart from being a fascinating part of the world, it was not the most welcoming.

Since then, Jon and I have spent every other Christmas with family, making and keeping our own traditions. But those traditions have less to do with the real Christmas story than our first travels. The real story has a young mother traveling away from home, cold and uncomfortable. There was no room in the inn, and she had to stay out in the cold.  She couldn't return home either, but had to go live in another land where all was strange, with no one around to welcome and support the new family.

It seems that Christmas follows us wherever we are.
Wherever you find yourself this Christmas season, whether near or far, you can be sure that the season has not passed you by.
                      Emanuel: God with us.