Things we take for granted.

Life is so very busy right now, that blogging is becoming increasingly difficult. We are still in the never ending visa process. We had to do another border crossing last week. It was fun and I will blog about it one of these days, but it always gets us behind with school, housecleaning, the normal routine.
Since it's the Christmas season, our little homeschool co-op is also busy. For some reason I though I should put to use my bakery qualifications from many moons ago and teach the kiddos and their friends how to bake and decorate a traditional British Christmas cake!
Anyway back to the blog title. In the middle of this, our first Christmas season back in the desert, I am reminded again of those little things in life that this season brings, the things I miss.
The postal system here is archaic. Receiving mail can takes weeks, months, years-no I am not joking. Literally mail can arrive in a timely manner but getting it delivered is another matter. If you can imagine a room with stacks of letters and packages on the floor and never getting to the bottom of the pile-that is how it is! The Christmas season makes things worse as all the new mail piles on top of the old and so it continues. 
I am so very thankful that so far this year we have received one Christmas card and one package. My parents always send advent calendars for the kiddos and it being a small packet was delivered pretty quickly. Since living in Arabia, I have sadly taken to recycling Christmas cards! I keep the few we actually receive from previous years and hang them up!
With the increase of internet greeting cards and Facebook birthday greetings, I miss getting cards. Who knew that receiving a card would mean so much-but it does.
Sending mail from here is hit and miss. Sometimes letters arrive, sometimes they don't. It makes communicating with those back home hard. Postcards, letters send from here sometimes just never make it. I used to take for granted getting cards in the mail-now they are a treasured gift at this time of year.