Since 2006 we have spent most of our Christmases away from home. This year our Christmas tree is two wreaths and there are four nativity sets instead of 40 or so. But where ever we have been on Christmas the center of it is Christ and family.

The two nativity sets on the left above come from our first Christmas in Indonesia. I bought the small Charlie Brown set in Provo and brought them to Jakarta to surprise Mary. I did not know what size tree we would have so I kept it small. The one behind it is from Africa and we bought it soon after we got here this time.

 

We were visiting a member’s home and they had this very African Christmas tree made from the branches of a thorn bush. They paint them white and use the two inch thorns to hang their ornaments. While we were there we also saw that they used painted pine cones to make small Christmas trees. We like this idea so much that we gathered up a bunch of cones and painted them silver, white, gold or green and are going to use them as an activity for FHE and Seminary this week. The white base is Mary’s addition to the basic pine cone tree. I will post some of the creations later.

 

Christmas 2013 found us at home with snow on the ground and our family Christmas tree brightly lighted for Christmas morning. In 2012 we were in Florida and we found a small pine and Costco poinsettias.

  

Christmas 2011 was also in Florida where I bought a different kind of pine which Mary was not thrilled with because the branches were too flimsy. I am still looking for one from 2010 when we were home. The tiny picture – I can not find the original so borrowed this one from our blog – is our 2009 tree in Richards Bay South Africa. It is actually a tree root that has been sand blasted. I wish we could have brought it home. This was the man where we bought our small tree. I really wanted to buy one of the big ones and send it home to make a table but could not figure how to do it without it costing a fortune.

2008 we were at home and 2006 & 2007 we were in Indonesia. When I have time I will look for pictures from there. But since we arrived in Indonesia just two days before Christmas in 2006 we did not have a tree but got to go to a great Christmas program at the Jakarta branch.

After I had written the above I found this picture of our 2007 Christmas tree while we were in Indonesia. The tree and lights were already in the apartment but we added some ornaments including the Charlie Brown nativity.