Wishing Lanterns

Its been a nice quiet holiday for us, probably for the best considering both of the babies and myself are fairly sick right now. The town actually asked people to stay home on New Years eve and the pastor conducted his service over the radio, to stop the spread of illness'.

Something else mentioned on local radio was our lanterns.

Katie's smiley lantern, filling up with hot air

I ordered wishing lanterns from China, not knowing if the extreme cold would allow them to heat up enough to fly. Lucky for us, once lit indoors, our beautiful lanterns floated somewhat gracefully into the wind, high above the town.

The night was a little bit of a shock for me here, as I have never celebrated in a town so small. There were no fire works at all, but when midnight hit, I heard them. I walked out the door behind Katie and jokingly said, "it sounds like we're being shot at." She laughed. We may not have been getting shot at, but the hundreds of fire-work-like bangs, were in fact gun shots. Interesting, and mildly dangerous way to ring in the new year, but thrilling nonetheless.

When Katie mentioned our lanterns at work yesterday, her co-worker Pasha responded with, "Oh, that was you guys? People were talking about those on the local radio." When Katie passed along the comment, I was delighted. I'm glad there were other people who got to share in the beauty of our new years wishes. We sent out three that night, one early, with two crying babies, and one for each of us at midnight.

Though we both missed the traditions of our home towns, I think we may have created a new one.