INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE

I am finally finished preparing all the Christmas cards and packages to send out. What was fun this year is the number of cards we sent to international friends. Our Big Trip this year brought us into contact with some wonderful people from around the world. Some we met in person, like the Mongolian family of our daughter-in-law, Bayra. That was a very special treat, since we now claim them as family. We also met Efrem and Luciana in Verona, Italy, who so kindly let us use their second home there. And Katja and Thom in Copenhagen, whom we met at church one day and found ourselves the next day touring the city with them and having supper in their apartment with their family. And we so enjoyed staying with the Paltins family in Hamburg, whose son was our exchange student in Oregon about 15 years ago!

Others we met online, as we arranged home exchanges, but these feel like real relationships, too. Genevieve met those who stayed in our home, so we have that once-removed live connection. There is the O'Sullivan family from London, and the Goris family from Antwerp, and our Persian friends from Copenhagen, the Ghasemi family. Still others generously shared their homes with us: Louis and Nicole from Pau, France let us use their Marrakech home, and Claire and Julien rented us their beautiful Paris flat in July.

It was such fun to address Christmas cards to all our new friends from around the world. Even two of our children, Gordon and Gabrielle, required international postage. I love that the world is so small, that we are all family, that most people everywhere just want to be kind and good and happy.

Merry Christmas to all!