Romanian Christmas Eve Memory

Today as I was writing emails to missionaries I couldn't help but think about my own Christmas as a missionary.  It was a unique experience to be away from home and family.  To avoid feeling homesick my companion and I decided to really enjoy and learn about the beautiful Romanian Christmas traditions and to focus on service.  Looking back now it is one of my sweetest Christmas memories.

The month leading up to Christmas I loved the stacks of cabbage along the streets, I thought they looked like Christmas trees!

Sister Cone and I had moms that helped make service really easy for us.  My mom sent me a package full of cute bags, little toys, nativity Christmas ornaments, and lots of fun things that we could put together to give to the families that we knew and taught.  It was so fun to spread Christmas cheer everywhere we went.

Sister Cone's mom had the ladies in her ward in Maryland help her make fleece blankets.  They sent us 2 HUGE boxes of blankets to give out to people.  We had a special day visiting an AIDS hospital giving out the blankets to people who desperately needed comfort, they were so appreciative of their blankets.

My giant bagpack and laundry bag were filled with blankets!

We met this guy on the bus one day, just taking his (live) Christmas goose home for Christmas dinner.

These little boys were right below our apartment dressed as bears and dancing right below our window one day.  The dancing bear tradition started long ago, when real bears were escorted into the towns and villages, trained to dance to the music.  Now men and boys dress in bear costumes.  This tradition is supposed to bring good luck in the new year.  So fun!

Our actual Christmas Eve was great!  We woke up to a huge snow storm that morning!

We bundled up and made our way to the church where we had a Christmas party with all of the other missionaries serving in Bucharest.

Somehow all of the sisters wore red sweaters.

Early in the season Sister Cone and I bought a Christmas tree and decorated it.  We decided we would keep the tree until we found a family that needed one.  On Christmas Eve we found our family, the elders we were serving with told us about a family that had no Christmas.  We bundled up and set off on an adventure to deliver our secret tree.  We had to take the tree on the subway, a bus, and the tramvai.  We got a lot of interesting looks.

When we found the family's street we had to walk through the snow a ways, slipping and sliding the whole way.  We fell down several times and just giggled.  When we got close to the house, we put all of the decorations back on the tree, dropped the tree off on the door, rang the doorbell and ran and hid.  We couldn't stop smiling when we heard them open the door and pictured the looks on their faces!

As we made our way home on that cold night I know we both felt the true spirit of Christmas.  The next day several families opened their homes to us, sharing their traditional meals and Christmas celebrations with us.  I found Christmas thousands of miles away from everything that had ever meant Christmas to me before.  So many great memories!  I LOVE Romania!