It’s holiday season in many parts of the world but not here as it is a Muslim country. I miss hosting Thanksgiving dinner with friends when we lived in the US. I recall eating turkey for a full week after the dinner.
I used to host a lot more. Not so much since we came to Jakarta. I wonder why. Yes, it is a lot of work to host dinners, especially for big groups, but that never prevented me to host even in DC without house help.
I wonder if it’s because I haven’t found a group of people that I like enough to feel excited to prepare weeks ahead to host a great dinner. I do have few friends here that I went to Rinjani together and had few others that left the country. I could cultivate new friendships but given that I somehow know we might not stay here for long, I’m “lazy” to put the effort.
I do plan to do few things to feel the holiday festivities within our small family of 4.
- Advent calendar. I still need to think about what activities/small gifts for each day, but I am determined to do it this year as girls love it. Please let me know if you have ideas what to do, someone simple, or small gifts.
- Thanksgiving dinner (likely not on Thanksgiving day) with the family. The highlight is the roasted chicken, and sweet potato with marshmallows. The girls are asking for it.
- Secret Santa gifts. Girls know that I am the Santa, but they still love the idea of getting a lot of gifts. We all prepare one gift to the other, and I’d give few more to the girls. The key is to have many not necessarily expensive ones.
- Two birthdays. Mine and Husband. We will spend mine (on Christmas) in Raja Ampat so probably nothing special other than the Christmas dinner organized by the resort. For husband, we might do an overnight golf trip.
- New tradition: gratitude bottle. I love the idea of reflecting what we are grateful, which is plenty. The more I think about them, the more I feel grateful for everything we have. I want to start the tradition with the girls to write them down.
Q: What are you excited about the holiday season?
Our New Journey 
I have always loved the idea of writing down what you’re grateful for each night and putting in a jar, and then at some point, maybe on Thanksgiving, to sit down and open them all and read out loud. Maybe that could be part of your advent event (since thanksgiving is so close already). You could write down one thing from each of you from the 1-24 and pull them all out of a jar when you’re done to read them one by one.
Or you could make a gratitude paper chain. Write something down on strips of colored paper, glue or tape them into circles creating a long chain somewhere in your house.
LikeLike
What are you excited about the holiday season? Oh, I’m not big into holiday celebrations so I’m pretty easygoing about what happens. I like driving around the neighborhood at night to see the lights, but even that is kind of *meh* to me. Not much of an answer, huh?
LikeLike
We are visiting the family for Christmas this year and I am excited about the prospect of visiting a Christmas market in Germany as we arrive early enough this time (besides seeing family of course).
A couple of years back I made an Advent calendar for my kids and ever since they want a homemade one. I brought back little Haribo gummy packages from Germany which will go in this year and throw in small presents like playing cards or useful things like socks and gloves here and there. But I also like the idea of adding vouchers for cookie baking, ice skating or a movie night.
LikeLike
I always forget how “different” this holiday season might look in other parts of the world… but it’s really what you make of it, right?
We don’t have a lot of local friends, so we’re not hosting a group dinner, but I am looking forward to cooking some good food, decorating and baking!
LikeLike
I have heard of the gratitude bottle or jar many times and always wanted to start. Never did though.
As for advent calendar I do have some ideas – one of my day jobs is writing blogpost with small gift ideas. So here are some ideas maybe they are helpful: small coloring books, temporary tattoos, sticker, a crafting set, candy of course, small books to read, little puzzle games, nice pens…
LikeLike
thank you for these ideas!!
LikeLike
I love the holiday season! It’s one of my favorite times of the year. I am actually putting up my tree tomorrow. I like to get it up early so we can enjoy the glow of the tree. Plus the next weekend is thanksgiving which can be busy (and I host an annual cookie decorating party Sunday of that weekend so it’s nice to have the tree up) and then the following weekend is Will’s 3rd bday so we will be celebrating him. I love seeing all of the holiday decorations in our neighborhood. This year we will make a point to drive around and see the lights now that Will goes to bed a bit later!
LikeLike