Tuesday, December 20, 2022

The cachi-wachi of Christmas

 A big part of retiring and moving to this retirement community was downsizing our stuff. I’ve written about this previously. This included all sorts of Christmas decorations: funny things the kids made, a collection of cross-stitched tree ornaments, gift ornaments from other countries, different creches, hangings, and so on. You know what I’m talking about. I actually managed to get it pared-down to one box of precious Christmas stuff. We’ve decided our small apartment won’t handle a Christmas tree, and that helped.

Marie Condo, the queen of de-clutter, to the rescue again, reminding us to only keep stuff that brings us joy. We have a word for that in the Aymara language of Bolivia. Cachi-wachi. Beloved stuff. So let me show you some of our precious Christmas cachi-wachi. This is part of the stuff we brought with us.


The first is a carved wooden creche made by an Aymara artisan in the small community of Juli, Peru. The shepherds are dressed as Aymara sheep herders, and the animals around the manger include two high altitude llamas. It reminds me that Jesus came as a baby to a culture similar to the Aymara people we served among for so many years.


The second manger scene is one I made from a pattern found in a woman’s magazine over 30 years ago. The figures are felt, glued onto an Aymara awayo, the cloth the women use to bundle their babies and carry them on their backs. I’ve made and gifted dozens of copies of this hanging.

The creche below comes from Rwanda, Africa, where our son and his family served for many years. It’s made of some kind of straw, hangs from the ceiling, and twirls around in a breeze. The angels seem like weird alien insects and they always make me laugh. If the real thing was anything like this, I understand why the shepherds were “sore afraid.”


The next "ornament" came as a gift a few months ago. I knew that the Christmas cactus sometimes blooms, but this one didn’t give any hints of being anything other than a nice succulent taking up space in our window. It surprised me. It probably shouldn’t have. The name itself is a clue. But it’s Christmas time and this plant opens up a new pink blossom every day. Soon it will be covered. I like to just sit, look at it, and smile. Like that baby born so many years ago, it stirs up hope from a deep place.



I love Christmas. I’d love it even without the cachi-wachi, but the stuff helps me celebrate. It’s all touchable. These things occupy space and brighten up the room with their colorful materiality. And isn’t that what this time of year is all about? God put on materiality. He became a baby and occupied space in a real place. We call it incarnation. God made flesh. Human. Real and touchable.

It's a miracle beyond my understanding. But not beyond my celebrating.


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