Saturday began the way Saturdays should: unhurried, a little sleepy, and quietly happy. My husband went to pick up our youngest from the dorm, officially checking her out for a long holiday. A whole month. Just saying that still makes my heart stretch a bit wider. There’s something deeply comforting about knowing your child is coming home not just for a weekend, but long enough to fully exhale.
By lunchtime, we were finally four again. I cooked bakso soup using Sony’s bakso that our eldest brought from Lampung some time ago. That bakso never fails. It’s the kind of food that doesn’t need compliments, it just gets quiet nods and second helpings. The table felt fuller than usual, not because of the food, but because everyone was there. Complete. Present.
The calm didn’t last long. Saturday afternoon shifted gears quickly as we headed to Pondok Gede for our annual regional Christmas gathering, hosted at my in-laws’ house. As expected, it was busy in that familiar, communal way. Helping with logistics, moving things around, checking on this and that. About a hundred people came, all members of the regional church community. Lively, warm, a little chaotic, but in a good way.
This year’s program felt different. Instead of the usual sermon-and-singing format, there was an interview-style session, designed like welcoming guests into a living room. Casual, intimate, surprisingly engaging. Of course, there was still singing, and yes, Silent Night and Malam Kudus were sung as they should be: lights off, candles lit, each person holding a small flame. That soft glow never gets old. It presses pause on everything noisy inside.
We arrived at five in the afternoon. The event started at six. It ended at nine thirty. And because packing up always takes longer than planned, we only made it home around ten thirty at night. By then, our youngest had triumphantly packed an unreasonable amount of food. Bakso, bakmi, pork dishes, capcay, satay, crackers, siomay, dimsum, rambutan. Enough to question whether we were hosting our own mini catering business for the next few days 😅
I was exhausted. It was long. It was loud. It was tiring. But somehow, it was exactly what it needed to be.

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