The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever

Oh wait. That wasn’t a pageant…that was our LIFE!!! This will go down in history as the craziest Christmas ever, and that’s saying a lot since I was recovering from childbirth and moving states and preparing to move continents last year!

A time-line may help explain.

Monday, 10am, we get the word that renters have been found for our house and they need to move in by Dec 27 (Sunday)! No boxes, no packing supplies, no problem. We’re pros at moving! We’ll clear out the apartment so it’s ready for our things to go in. Whoops, the keys to the big front door are locked up and the only one with access to them is out of town for 2 days.

Tuesday: we clear the (badly) furnished apartment by carrying everything out a narrow kitchen door, so it takes all day, and then start packing up our house in the 5 boxes we have, unpacking them in the new apartment so we can reuse those boxes for more trips. The truck isn't available because the keys are in the same place as the front door keys.

Wednesday: The truck is available, the front door keys are in hand, and 8 friends show up to help move everything big. The first load goes as smooth as silk. This is kind of crazy-fun! We always were gluttons for chaos. The second load…not so much. Just as we were driving into the apartment complex the skies opened and it POURED (did I mention our things were in a flat-bed truck? No tarp?) Amazingly, nothing was seriously damaged!

Thursday: We’re almost done, right? Only a few small things left. But those small things took FOREVER! We finally got it finished in time to make it to the mission carol-sing (I excused myself from bringing any food to contribute!) We got home at 9 and unpacked all the boxes from the living room, set up the tree (sans ornaments!) and wrapped Christmas presents, set up the stockings, and collapsed into bed. Can it really almost be Christmas??

The new apartment is nice. It's on the small side, with all 3 kids sharing a room and only 1 bathroom, but other than that, it's better in many ways. It has a fabulous shower (we've had to hold the nozzle in one hand since we arrived in April), ceiling fans (a blessing in this heat), great screens on the windows (far less mosquitoes munching us in the evening), and a fantastic yard with a long driveway for the kids to ride their bikes. We'll be here until our co-workers get moved up north to a new people group they'll be working with, and then we'll move into their old house. It could be anytime from 3 weeks to 3 months. And I'm ok with that timeline, as long as I have more than 3 days to move next time!