Living in a foreign country during a holiday season is, well, weird.  Traditions aren’t the same.  Festive food is different.  Even the Christmas carols aren’t sung to the right tunes.  To top it all off, this is my first Christmas ever over which I do not have a long break from work or school.  Rather than my seminary colleagues seventeen days off, I’ll have one and a half days off–Christmas afternoon after worship and Boxing Day (that’s what Scots call the 26th…yeah, weird).

Growing up the son of a pastor, this lack of time off does not come as a great surprise.  Not only do minister’s not get time off at Christmas and Easter, it’s their busiest time of the year.  That said, Dad usually took off the following Christmas, and the family traditionally went to St. George Island for vacation.

Before you start feeling too sorry for me, Megan and I are very much looking forward to Christmas Day itself.  We’ll enjoy food and fellowship with family–my aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandparents-in-law–and will actually see more family on Christmas day this year than last.

One weird Scottish tradition which we find both endearing and a bit excessive is the sending of gobs and gobs of Christmas cards.  We’ve received over seventy–70!–and we don’t even have many friends!

Some marketing executive somewhere is making huge bucks off these cards as they are generally of very high quality and must cost more than a fish supper.  I have no idea how many cards folks send on average, but it must be closer to 100 than 20.  Most of the cards contain a wee Christmas greeting and folks will sign their names, or maybe even write a sentence or two themselves.

Don’t get me wrong:  it’s great getting the cards.  But, when one considers the aggregate time, energy, worry, and expense of sending them, it makes one pause.  And to think, most of the cards are being sent from friend to friend, most of whom folks see on a regular basis and will certainly pass on the greetings of the season in person.  I did feel quite sorry this week for our local postman, John.  When Megan and I spoke to him a few days ago, he seemed pretty haggard and overwhelmed.  His workload must have more than tripled in the past few weeks leading up to Christmas.

Now sending millions of Christmas cards is probably not any less weird than fruitcake, egg nog, Christmas lights, or live manger scenes, but come on, it is a bit weird.