One of the most intriguing things about living over here is the obsession with stamps. I don’t mean the kind that you get at the post office and put on a letter, but the kind you get that mark a document as official. Everyone has one and nothing exists without a stamp.

Yesterday, I bought Valerie a food processor for Christmas. We went to the local Media Markt (no, I didn’t forget the “e”, it is actually spelled that way), which is pretty much the same as Best Buy or Circuit City. We paid for it and then as we have become acustomed to, we had to go get a stamp. For some reason, your warranty is no good unless you get the official stamp. So, we had to go around the corner into this tiny little room where tons of people stood in line to worship the almighty stamp. Never mind that in a store like this, 80% of the people that buy something will need a stamp, you still have to go to the little room. It is pretty much a waist of time that they have 6 checkout lanes open because there are only 2 lines in the little room and pretty much everyone has to go there. Maybe some day, your receipt will be good enough or they will figure out how to give you the stamp in the checkout line.

Just one more chapter in the overseas adventure.

Here’s Kendall and her good friend Janie with the castles in the background. 

Here’s Reed with his friend Jack. 

Kirby Ann tagged along with Valerie. I had to sit out because I have a big cut on my leg that hurt terribly when I put my skates on. I didn’t even make it out of the skate rental room. 

As is a tradition among many American missionaries here in Budapest on Christmas Eve, we went ice skating today at the main city park in downtown Budapest. It is a beautiful place and a lot of fun with all of our friends. Here are a few of the pictures. 

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . Jack Frost nipping at your nose
. . AND FISH!!!” I mentioned in my last post that Fish Soup is the food
of the day here in Hungary. These are just a few of the billboards that
have popped up around town over the last week or so. I especially like
the one with Frosty riding the fish. It feels more like Christmas
everyday.

One of the things we enjoy about living here in Budapest is learning about different cultures. While we knew that we are clearly over the top in celebrating Christmas in America (I just saw Christmas with the Kranks yesterday and it is pretty much a documentary on the subject), Hungarians are at the other end of the spectrum. Here’s what Christmas looks like for them:

Dec 6th – St. Miklos Day – This is the only day that Santa shows up. Kids are supposed to clean their boots before they go to sleep and set them on the window sill. In the morning, St. Miklos (Santa) has filled them with candy and goodies. It is a fun day, but not too big of a deal. There is school and work and everything else on this day. Just some candy for the kids.

Dec 7-23rd – Not much . . . some Christmas decorations (1 out of 100 houses). The stores are similar to America. In fact, the traffic jams around the major stores were unbelievable. No Christmas parties or anything like that.

Dec 24th – Today is the big day for Hungarians. This is the day that they setup their tree (not the weekend after Thanksgiving). Tonight, the kids go out with someone, while the the tree is setup and baby Jesus brings presents to the house on Christmas eve. They get together with family for a couple of days, but pretty much that is it. On top of it all, they have fish soup. All of the billboards around town have put up Christmas signs with pictures of “Live Carp” and the good deals that they have. The stores have lines with 50 people in them waiting for their shot at the tank with the live fish. We don’t participate in this tradition, because as Americans, fish doesn’t sound like Christmas.

All of this reminds me that in God’s eyes, none of this has anything to do with Christmas. It is about His passionate rescue plan for us in sending His son to die for our sins. It’s pretty easy to forget this, no matter what country you are in.

Bill Byrne, Texas A&M’s athletic director, sends out a weekly email. This week he talks about the fallacy that going to a bowl game means huge dollars for a school. Since attending a bowl is incredibly expensive and they have to share the money with the rest of the conference, there is hardly anything left. In fact, if the Aggies had gone to the Holiday Bowl they would have surely lost money because of the expense of going to California and the reduced payout. It is still a big win, though, because of national exposure and a big boost for recruiting.

I’m amazed at how open and honest Bill Byrne is each week. He takes on all questions candidly and openly. GREAT LEADERSHIP.

Gig’Em Ags!

Is it a white Christmas if it is ice and not snow? Our first significant weather precipiation started yesterday in the form of freezing rain While the first snow is an exciting event for everyone, the first freezing rain is a total drag. Streets are slick and probably unpassable after freezing over last night. It isn’t pretty at all.

We supposed to get some of the real stuff this week, so it is looking good for Christmas. Hopefully, the bottom layer of ice will melt off in a few days.

I crossed another milestone in my journey to becoming European. It isn’t really something I aspire to, but something that seems to just happen to me. Ever since we have lived here, trash has been a problem. We have two small (by American standards) trash cans that have to make it through each week. We struggle each week to make it without overflowing both of them. The garbage company won’t take anything that isn’t in the can because we pay only for them to pick up what is in the can, nothing else. While we have managed to make it with normal household garbage, when anything out of the ordinary comes along we are stuck. We have tons of cardboard boxes from bringing things home from the US, from things we have bought, etc . . .and I can never get them in the trash. These have been piling up for over a year now.

This morning I had a breakthrough. I’ve noticed that other people burn their trash on a regular basis. We are always smelling smoke of a fire a couple of houses down. I’ve always wondered why they burn so many things. Then, it hit me, that this was the answer to my dilemna. I started the fire in the backyard and within 30 minutes, I had reduced my pile of boxes to almost nothing. In fact, I folded the ashes into the dirt so that you can hardly tell they were there.

What a GREAT THING. I will be doing this again.