Christmas with Odile

If I ever doubted that the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places I would remind myself that so far there's never been a bad Christmas even counting the year Dan and I had tuna bagels for lunch and dinner with homeless people.  Like, not serving them, as fellow diners.  I still don't really know how.  We'd planned to spend Christmas in Bethlehem but 3 vehicles in a row got blown up at the cordon and suddenly heading back to Jerusalem felt like Plan A.  At the dinner we met a doctor from Brazil whose only overture of Christmas cheer was showing us his photo album of people suffering from various forms of elephantitis splayed all over the beds in his mad little clinic.  One man had elephantitis of the gonads.  Imagine - or don't, it's seared into my brain forever.  So we gave the Brazilian all our money and left the dinner for Christ Church and sang Samoan hymns of anti-elephantitis thanksgiving, wondering what would happen next.  It was a Palestinian group arriving for the special ecumenical service, including some boys from Hamas which is you know, about as bloody ecumenical as it gets.

Anyway.  What's even better than a great Christmas is a Christmas with Odile.  Today she brought home our Christmas present from daycare, a bunch of smudgy, munty little paintings and drawings made into frames and Christmas trees and cards, and half a candy cane (hoping she ate the other half waiting for me otherwise the austerity measures have just jumped the shark).  She noticed the wreath on the door as soon as we hit the steps, and was jumping around in front of her advent calendar, reaching for the Jesse tree, blowing over the single solitary card we've got so far as though it was the 25th already (yes that is a subtle hint, it's no fun trying to hang cards on Christmas Eve and I'll be honest - after about the 20th I just file them in the bin).  Christmas with a toddler ROCKS.

For the people who've asked, no she's not really getting presents this year either.  New jimjams Christmas Eve, a book or two but otherwise just presents we're making - a tyre swing and this deeply coveted bed/car/plane/table for a girl and her toys.