This year marked the
first time that I didn’t spend Christmas in Atlanta with my family. My traditional
family activities include helping my dad lay strings of lights through the
juniper in our front yard, decorating the tree while blasting Mannheim
Steamroller holiday tunes, and joining extended family gatherings on both
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s a noisy, delicious, happy time of year,
but I figured this will be the only chance for me to see a Kiwi Christmas, so I
decided months ago that I’d spend this December 25th with my host family in
Auckland. Despite the gifts for the kids not arriving on time—although I’m sure
they won’t mind getting another present in January—it was a fun holiday for me.
I turned out feeling
more homesick than I’d expected. I had a long Skype chat with my family during
their Christmas Eve gathering, and it hadn’t really felt to me like Christmas
time until I saw that. The setting, the food, the faces, and even some of the
conversations were the same as always; only after glimpsing into their evening
did I realize what I was missing and wonder if I had made a mistake in not
returning to the homestead for the sacred yearly gathering. However, I still got to laugh with my family
and see them open the gifts I sent from NZ, which means I got to enjoy the best
moments of Christmas.
I really enjoyed
finding out not only how another country celebrates the holiday, but how
another family spends it. On Christmas morning, I loved watching the kids euphorically
cover the living room with toys and gift wrap, and for most of the day I enjoyed
seeing how my host family shared their love and food with each other. The meals
were a delicious departure from what I typically consume at Christmastime, and my
favorite was a raw, cured salmon that my host dad’s mum had made for dinner. We
also shared Christmas crackers, which are paper tube-like wrappers that two
people pull apart from opposite ends; they pop loudly when they split, and
within each is a toy, a crepe paper crown, and a slip of paper with a very
cheesy joke. The kids loved the noisy colorfulness of it, and because we adults
joined in, too, the floor was littered with paper scraps and we all sat around
the table with our multicolored crowns by the time we contentedly munched our
last morsels of dinner.
Even though I often
felt like I was more an observer than a participant at this Christmas
celebration (but hey, I feel that way at my own family gatherings sometimes), I
had a lovely holiday. I’m so grateful that my host family is so welcoming, and I’m
glad I could share a special time of year with them. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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